The season for holiday parties has arrived.   Leaving aside family events and work group activities, entrepreneurs tend to look upon such events as an opportunity for a combination of fun and celebration together with a chance for additional networking that will result in potentially profitable business connections. My own experience and observations are that the better the chance for good

James Madison, fourth President of the United States and one of the drafters of the Constitution, famously said that no limits on government would be necessary if we were ruled by angels.  Of course, we know better regarding the human capacity for wrong-doing.  Yet when academic advisers to management write about how leaders should exhibit great trust, it is almost

Editor’s Note:  Team Formation, the topic of this article, is the sixth of the Six Engines of Entrepreneurial Ascent®, which are detailed at https://mulkernassociates.com/leadership/six-engines-entrepreneurial-ascent. Everyone in business accepts without question the critical importance of teams and teamwork.  The terms are treated almost with reverence.  Yet much of the time, I respectfully submit, we do not seem to know what we

Editors note:  The following article co-authored by Tony Mulkern and Cynthia Flynn, Esq., appeared in the February 2019 edition of Los Angeles Lawyer, the magazine of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.  Cindy Flynn is the founder and managing partner of Hackler Flynn & Associates, a boutique law firm in Los Angeles and Irvine that focuses on employment defense.   In the

By Tony Mulkern Discussion about accountability is as much a part of executive conversations as goals, objectives, standards, and bottom line.  It is also seems among the most difficult concepts to define or make stick.  Patrick Lencioni, author of the outstanding book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, considers one of the most difficult tasks for members of an executive

By Tony Mulkern Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman and CEO of Amazon, and the richest person in the world, recently said that he wants his employees to “be afraid” and to “wake up every morning terrified.”  Presumabaly he was exaggerating, because Bezos knows something about what motivates achievement, and terror is usually debilitating.  What he is referring to is the fifth