Phil La Duke | Page 2

Without a bachelor's degree that first rung of the career ladder, an unpaid internship, might be out of reach.

Facts are important to finding your way in the world, even if they aren't as persuasive as we wish they were.

Saying to ourselves "It's just temporary" or "He'll grow into the job" simply won't cut it.

To know how your employer is doing you have to follow the money.

No enterprise undertaken in hate will profit you and working for yourself probably won't be a better job.

Feedback -- giving it, ducking it, getting it, ignoring it -- can be a dicey situation. Ask yourself these questions before going there.

Maybe young workers being trolled by get-rich-quick schemers has something to do with the transformation of the US entry-level job into a benefit-free, full-time, unpaid internship on a 'parent grant.'

The excuses are many, but the solution is surprisingly simple.

When a customer's requests for add-ons and changes puts a project manager in an invidious position, scope creep has crept in.

Too many solopreneurs and freelancers are mispricing themselves in the labor market. Get out a sharp pencil and get it right.

Satirically we mourn the death of a venerable American institution and ponder those who are happy it is no more.

The traits of authentic leadership are timeless, even if conspicuously absent these days. Here's a refresher.

A functional workplace of diverse people and ideas is fertile ground for creativity -- and for conflict. Here's how to be a good referee.

To be an effective trainer, you need to keep it short, keep it sharp and keep it moving. If you find yourself reading the PowerPoint slides aloud, you've justly earned the blank or hostile looks glaring at you. Then, the only redemption possible is ending early.

Success, thus defined, stands on the very shoulders of such unhappy experiences as loss and quitting, failure and striking out. Dig it.

If you think of yourself as an 'entrepreneurial enterprise' instead of an 'employee,' you'll find it easier to always be the boss of you.

Effective leaders manage performance by continually reinforcing their criteria for success.

Your goals will not achieve themselves and will regrettably require your vigorous participation.

It sounds oxymoronic, or perhaps just regular moronic, but it's true. The furthest you can ever fall is when you've reached your peak.

Mediocrity has its place. Where success and survival are synonyms, not dying is winning.

It is not whether it's positive or negative that determines its quality, it's how it's delivered. Wanna help? Do it this way.

Deadline pressure is a crushing affliction. It can bring out the best in some, madness in others, or both, as they labor side-by-side ... in the Twilight Zone.

Keep 'em short; send an agenda around beforehand and stick to it, like white on rice; demand preparation; schedule tightly and run it like an Apollo launch. Got it? Good, meeting adjourned.

Mourn not the passing of your business's biggest time waster and productivity serial killer. Instead, calculate a dollar cost before ever scheduling another meeting, using this simple process.

How one Midwestern boy survived existential ennui, unending schooling and tons of bad advice to become an entrepreneur of wisdom and renown, sort of.

Not the least of which is to consider, from time to time, that you may be out of your mind. Call it mental hygiene.

Is joining a startup actually worth it?

Whether it's like climbing a mountain or turning an ocean liner, your leadership is what makes it happen.

Consider counterbalancing your freedom of speech with your right to remain silent. Both are precious.

The challenge when giving feedback is predicting what will be fed back from that.