The Eternal Question: Is it Better to Beg Forgiveness, or Ask Permission?

The Eternal Question: Is it Better to Beg Forgiveness, or Ask Permission? by Laura Stack #productivity

You’ve probably heard Grace Hopper's famous axiom, "It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission." As a child, my father used to tell me that all the time! As a pioneering computer scientist and one of the first female admirals in the U.S. Navy, "Amazing Grace" surely learned the value of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission during her long, storied career. Indeed, Hopper's Law seems to make a lot of sense in many real-world situations. But is it applicable to the workplace? The answer, as with so many other business questions, is, “It depends.” There are reasonable arguments for both sides of the equation, depending on the circumstances. For example, if you're an IT tech, you definitely want to ask permission before changing or upgrading the operating system of an … [Read more...]

Stop Thinking and Start Acting: Seven Tips for Making Executive Decisions

Stop Thinking and Start Acting: Seven Tips for Making Executive Decisions by Laura Stack #productivity

There's an image making the rounds on the Internet titled "Executive Decision Making System." It shows a picture of both faces of a penny, heads labeled "Yes" and tails labeled "No." From an outside perspective, that may seem hilariously true—and as a leader yourself, you've probably run into cases where you'd prefer to just flip a coin to settle something, rather than wade through all the pros and cons. You may even have done it once or twice. And don't you feel better after having made a decision? Most of us do. Rita Mae Brown, an American activist and novelist, once said “A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.” She was certainly no stranger to high-level decision making. Though the world mostly knows her as a writer of cozy mysteries, Brown is an ardent civil … [Read more...]