Power Point: Make your own talent

• This week: California on the edge

  I was in California this past week and I'm happy to report that the Golden State did not fall into the Pacific Ocean.

  It seemed it might, as inches of rain drenched Silicon Valley and the state government fought off insolvency. What a disaster California is right now, even after the legislature yesterday approved a plan to close a $42 billion budget deficit and end the "fiscal emergency" that the action-hero MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Feb 20, 2009 1:51 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Arnold Schwarzenegger, auto industry, banks, California, CEOs, Cisco, Citigroup, Doris Drucker, economy, Facebook, finance, General Motors, Geoff Colvin, Hewlett-Packard, management, MBA, Oracle, Peter Drucker, politics, Postcards, Silicon Valley, technology, unemployment, Washington

• Execution, execution, execution!

  I'll say it again: Execution! It's always been the No. 1 reason why CEOs fail, as my colleague Geoff Colvin and management guru Ram Charan have preached over the past decade. But particularly right now, as growth is so hard to come by and countless bosses are blowing it, there's a rising appreciation of this most critical thing.

  At least among the really smart bosses. I noticed it at last week's MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 18, 2008 2:02 PM ET
  Posted in: Anil Menon, banks, Boeing, CEOs, execution, Geoff Colvin, IBM, Ivan Seidenberg, Jamie Dimon, Jim McNerney, JPMorgan Chase, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Postcards, Ram Charan, Sam Palmisano, telecom, Verizon, Wall Street, Yale CEO SUmmit

• Power Point: Practice to be extraordinary

  "The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly 10 years, if you think about four hours a day."

  -- Malcolm Gladwell, from a Q&A with Fortune writer Jennifer Reingold in the current issue. In Gladwell's MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Nov 17, 2008 7:19 PM ET
  Posted in: Geoff Colvin, malcolm gladwell, Postcards, Power Point, practice, talent

• Power Point: Send the "open for business" message

  "The important thing that we're focused on is the "open for business" message. A lot is going on that's impacting confidence, but business is happening, and consumers need to realize that credit is still available."

  --Barbara Desoer, Bank of America's (BAC) mortgage chief, from "The Colvin Interview" in the current issue of Fortune. Desoer, who is No. 27 on Fortune's 2008 Most Powerful Women in business list, oversees the biggest collection MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Nov 11, 2008 6:15 PM ET
  Posted in: Bank of America, banks, Barbara desoer, country, fannie mae, FORTUNE MPWomen, freddie mac, Geoff Colvin, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, mortgage, Most Powerful Women, MPWomen, Postcards, Power Point

• How to stretch your talent

  My Fortune colleague Geoff Colvin reminds us in his Guest Post that the best time to test and stretch your talent is during tough times. Ever since we published Geoff's piece on Postcards yesterday, I've been thinking about this a lot. Last night, at a Bank of America (BAC) dinner at Manhattan's Four Seasons restaurant to benefit the International Women's Media Foundation's Courage in Journalism Awards, I sat with a MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Oct 21, 2008 12:28 PM ET
  Posted in: 60 Minutes, Allen & Co., Anne Finucane, Bank of America, banks, blogging, CBS News, CEOs, Fortune Most Powerful Women list, FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit, FORTUNE MPWomen, General Electric, Geoff Colvin, Guest Post, Jim McNerney, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Lelsey Stahl, management, Martha Stewart, Nancy Peretsman, Noeing, Postcards, Power Shift, Sam's Club, Sears, talent, Talent is Overrated, Wal-Mart, Wall Street

• Guest Post: Geoff Colvin's new take on talent

  Everybody's talking about how to find opportunity in the current economic chaos, but here's an angle that I think is being overlooked: Times of crisis present genuinely great opportunities to develop leadership. Now I didn't say to demonstrate leadership; that opportunity is obvious. I'm talking about building leadership capabilities beyond what you or others in your organization possess now. I realize it's difficult to be happy about tough times, but MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Oct 20, 2008 12:05 PM ET
  Posted in: A.G. Lafley, CEOs, coaching, consumer goods, General Electric, Geoff Colvin, Guest Post, Jeff Immelt, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, PepsiCo, Postcards, Procter & Gamble, talent

• Power Point: Try new glasses

  "It was as if somebody handed us a different pair of glasses, and the whole world looked different."

  -- Doug McMillon, CEO of Sam's Club (WMT), who is the subject of "The Colvin Interview" in the current issue of Fortune. McMillon explains how he developed a completely new perspective on sustainability when he realized it actually supported the company's mission of saving people money so they can live better. At 41, MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Oct 14, 2008 5:08 PM ET
  Posted in: CEOs, Colvin Interview, consumer goods, Doug McMillon, Geoff Colvin, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Postcards, Power Point, retail, Sam's Club