Archive | Business Partnerships

Those little annoyances

Someone told me long ago that he lacked the personality characteristic to be able to tolerate performing mundane tasks, including dealing with automated telephone systems; working out problems with a bank; balancing a checkbook; etc. I share this absence of the personality trait that obviously includes having patience to handle being placed on hold for […]

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It’s not easy being OK to Handle.  I think we’ve written about that story before.  But, in the recent example, I was dealing with one of our banks.  I don’t enjoy that kind of experience, but I know I can get through it; I have to.  Melissa could not.  I just have to persevere.  This […]

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Lesson from a Roofer: “I just do my job”

I have learned some things while observing the roofers who worked on David’s and my roof for 4 months (that seemed like an eternity). I have written past posts about some of my observations, including my amazement at how happily the roofers perform their jobs. On the last day of the 14 day installation of […]

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Sebastian told me something similar when I told him it seemed unfair to make him work on a (dangerous) roof by himself.  He shrugged and said “It’s a job.”  He seemed indifferent to which roof, which tile, how many co-workers he had.  He just knew what needed to be done and went about it without […]

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Making Friends

A recent email conversation with a friend, Tom, made me think about a fact of life that has some unfortunate consequences. As adults in the working world, we typically relate to each other on a single dimension, that of work. Whatever the work relationship, co-workers, client/consultant, or otherwise, our interactions are narrow in comparison to […]

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Luckily for me, I have always made friends in every kind of situation.  David’s friend, Tom, is an attorney at a large law firm, but neither David or I knew this when we met him while sitting next to each other at a RUSH concert.  David and I also met another, prominent and high profile, […]

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DHTs

I’m not sure when David invented DHTs, but I think it was during the time we lived part time in my hometown, Fort Myers, to help care for my mother during the final years of her life. For David and me, who own and operate a small business that requires frequent travel, commuting to and […]

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There is an extra tension in a marriage when one also works with one’s spouse as we have for 30+ years.  It is a 24/7/365 lifestyle unless one of us is traveling for business, and that is often a together activity for us.  Inevitably, there will be tensions and stresses that become personal even if […]

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Effort Justification

Social psychology is amazing (at least, in my opinion!) in its ability to explain things that would otherwise be hard to understand. Take the topic of effort justification as one example. Cognitive dissonance theory postulates that people do not like to have two attitudes or beliefs that conflict with one another. Cognitive dissonance leads to […]

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I suppose the question is, does working harder than necessary, overcoming obstacles, or paying more, make something better?  Does a meal taste better if you have to wait for a table?  Does scarcity make something more desirable?  Does engaging in a bidding war for something on eBay make one want the item more?  Does going […]

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Is your consultant a criminal?

This is a strange topic: Is your consultant a criminal? In this context, it is related to your trial consultant. When one hires a new employee, most often, a variety of background checks are conducted. A lawyer’s criminal history is policed by Bar associations; similarly, other licensed professions are vetted. But, what about professions not […]

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In the decades Magnus has been in business, we have found out many things about our employees, vendors, and prospective employees that, absent our checking into them, would have remained hidden.  Often, these secrets were nothing serious, for example, the office administrator we hired, even though we knew she had been arrested for D.U.I.  Then, […]

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Work Life Balance

The term “Work Life Balance” seems to have existed for a long time. In writing this post, I did a bit of quick research and found the concept was not well defined until the last 20 years. Researchers have identified 3 key balance components: time, involvement and satisfaction. When work or life (family) demands are […]

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Due to the lasting impact of COVID-19 on our nation’s workplaces, the issue of work/life balance has taken on a new urgency.  Although many corporations are requiring their employees to return to the office full time, and some workplaces, such as hospitals, never allowed remote working, other employers are struggling for ways to keep their […]

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The Major League

My family is a baseball family. My dad, the late Park T. Pigott, Sr. played baseball, coached baseball, and generally speaking, lived much of his life for baseball. I am not usually fond of sports analogies, however, recent experiences with clients of Magnus Research Consultants have reminded me of baseball. Almost all of Magnus’ clients […]

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This minor leaguer experience was one of the strangest situations we have had in years.  We had been, to keep up with the baseball analogy, “scouted” by the end client (that is the entity/person paying our bill).  Our ability to work with the lawyer was limited until that scouting was completed.  Admittedly, this process was […]

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I’m a Professional Judge of Character – Trust my 1st Impression

There have been several notable examples of my, and others’, questioning my first impressions of someone. On all of these occasions, my first impression was correct and unfortunately, questioning it caused negative turns of events. In that, as a psychologist, I am what most people would consider “a professional judge of character,” I have tried […]

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One aspect of owning a business never gets easier – hiring.  I feel like it is always a gamble.  And, I’m apparently not a good gambler because I’ve taken chances on hiring people who turned out to be ill equipped to do our work, or worse, a really bad fit, a bad choice, maybe a […]

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Why be Snarky?

Why be snarky when being snarky is unnecessary, particularly in the business world? One of Magnus vendors is a company with whom we interact on a frequent basis. The principal of this company, which will remain nameless, uses the most insulting tone imaginable when writing emails to me, the client. This person never misses the […]

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Any human to human interaction involves personalities, of course.  Most of the time one doesn’t give that much thought unless there is something that causes friction, something that isn’t comfortable.  Snarky or snide comments are one of those things.  It seems like the “snarker” is just picking, for whatever reason, at minor details.  Life and […]

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