About RiShawn Biddle

Apple made a great leap forward in communications and mobile computing in 2007 when it launched the iPhone. It couldn’t have done this by sticking to all the things that made it a pioneer in desktop computing. The company tried to launch the Newton handheld computer in 1993. The product failed and this setback stung. […]

Former BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward could have immediately and swiftly announced that the explosion of the British oil giant’s rig, Deepwater Horizon, had led to an environmental disaster that dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. But he didn’t. Over a 10-day period, Hayward would go from […]

Legendary jazz composer Duke Ellington once said, “I don’t need time. I need a deadline.” If that was true for Sir Duke, it is also true for you. When you have set deadlines, you are more likely to stay on task, make the most of your time, and achieve success in every facet of your […]

Will this idea that you are considering lead to a product that sells? This is the hardest question you and your colleagues will ask yourselves every day. There isn’t always an easy answer. Certainly you can easily dismiss the most outlandish product concepts, say a restaurant chain selling freshly-prepared pizza that people then take and […]

Does this one ring a bell? You, reader, are your own worst critic. Your penchant for nitpicking every detail and harshly critiquing your accomplishments makes it difficult for you to make progress or sometimes even get simple work done. If it doesn’t apply to you or someone close to you, then you have a great […]

Drama queens (and kings!) are bad for business. They disrupt your workplace by gossiping, backbiting, exaggerating every situation, justifying their bad behavior, and blaming others for their failures. Their behavior and their very presence compromises the teamwork that you and your colleagues need to succeed. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said that they spend 3-to-6 hours […]

Back in 2014, Barack Obama declared that he only focused on making the most-important decisions.  “I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make,” he explained. This is understandable. Sometimes we find ourselves beset by the decisions, big and small, that we think have […]

“Don’t rush me, sonny! You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles,” warned Billy Crystal, costumed up as Miracle Max in the 1987 classic The Princess Bride. In the movie, that was a laugh line, but it’s not a bad way to think about the decisions you make as a leader. For every decision that […]

Winston Churchill once wrote that “The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of first importance”. He knew this well. Even as he warned the world about the threat of totalitarian regimes and led Britain during the Second World War, the statesman crafted many of his more than 500 […]

You already know that busywork does nothing more than create the perception that people are working harder than they really are. In fact, 65 percent of your colleagues surveyed by Havas Worldwide felt that people were simply pretending to be busy. Nor does busywork make you or your company more productive. What you get instead […]

You will never make a fully-informed decision. Accept it. The reality is that every choice involves using limited information, can have unforeseen consequences, and, because of conditions that change before your very eyes, may end up being the wrong decision anyway. Then you will have to change your mind. Yet you still can make good […]

You are often your own worst enemy. It starts with the words out of your mouth and the voices in your head. From telling yourself that you aren’t knowledgeable enough to take on a new challenge to the nagging doubts about important career moves, the negative words in your mind are obstacles to the success […]

Meetings are a necessity. Meetings also often stink. Typically, they are a waste of time. There are too many meetings—and most of them are often poorly-organized, lack coherent agendas, serve to do little more than reaffirm hierarchies than achieve results. As a result, poorly-run meetings cost companies $37 billion a year in lost productivity. Employees […]

Creativity is not some remote and solitary island. Each day, from the studios of legendary visual effects outfit Industrial Light & Magic to the conference rooms of ad agencies to the mission control rooms of NASA, teams of people come together to conceptualize, develop, and realize innovations in everything from movies to public policy. Yet […]

The best and most creative thinking and problem-solving can only take place during uninterrupted periods of time. You know it and so do your colleagues. Which is why your company wants to give everyone time one day a week—let’s say Thursday—to work alone. Easier said than done. It is difficult to control the array of […]

The idea that working ever harder and longer leads to better results is as American as apple pie, despite all evidence to the contrary. Chronic overwork is unproductive, unhealthy, and destructive of a balanced life. Yet against the evidence—and against the advice of incredibly successful people such as Henry David Thoreau and Henry Ford—overwork remains […]

Your ambitious goal isn’t impossible to accomplish—and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The first step in making any endeavor possible is dismissing the naysayers who insist that the possible isn’t.

Certainly, you shouldn’t think that you can defy Newton’s Third Law of Physics or pretend that gravity doesn’t exist. You can, however, learn three priceless lessons from those who defied the skeptics.

It’s natural to feel like an imposter sometimes. But don’t dwell on your self-doubt. Instead, the solution is to recognize your feelings as a healthy part of your professional and personal development, realize that other successful people feel the same way, understand that you already have the strengths needed, and use this fear as a […]

If you are like many Americans, you spend more time working than ever. You’re also more likely to work weekends than in years past. We can blame decades-long efforts by companies to boost productivity (ending a century of declines in work hours) and the evolution of work-at-home arrangements for some of the extra hours. But […]

Sometimes you just have to say no. That isn’t always easy. But there are strategies that can help say no when you need to—and save your time, energy, and sanity in the process. Motivational speaker Byron V. Garrett, my former boss at National PTA, often says that you only have twelve hours a day to […]