www.handontheshoulder.com The Introduction It was a cold day in June when I arrived at the Susquehanna River. The town of Endicott lay across the river, still shrouded in a morning mist and looking like a place from another era. …

I’ve spent my whole life dodging early mornings. My first job was in a large manufacturing plant. Guess what? My department started work at 7:30 AM! There must be some natural law that manufacturing has to start early. …

“There is only one strategy, Tate.” “What’s that, Bob?” “Keep your options open,” replied my big boss, the VP of Manufacturing. I had just finished presenting our division’s 5-year strategic plan and our 2-year operating plan, both containing revenue projections, costs, human resources, and risks. My team had worked for…

The Angelic Asshole of Armonk has arrived. Like a corporate lemming, I’m standing by my rental Ford at the only helipad close to Sterling Forest. …

At the age of six or eight, I liked to play with toy soldiers. World War II was raging in Europe and the far East, so I tried to simulate some of the small battles. …

I remember the first time. It was in an outdoors equipment store, not really a surprising place to see a guy packing a gun. He looked like a normal fellow, with jeans, strangely pressed in a pleat, a forest green LLBean shirt, and scuffed ankle-high brown shoes. But, his belt…

WillowTree, a leading app-developer with headquarters in Charlottesville, posted a picture of a band greeting people as they showed up for one of their first all-employee meetings after the pandemic. This, it seems, is their first step in reboarding their team members. In well-run organizations, new employees go through a…

An excerpt from “Hand on the Shoulder: Finding freedom in the confluence of love and career.” As far as I know, Dad never had a day of formal management training in his life. He simply used sound human relations and family values. …

In those days, Orange was a railroad town, a dangerous little town. Two tracks, one owned by Southern Railways and the other by the Chesapeake and Ohio split the town right down the middle, cutting through Main Street with the power and authority of black, smoke-breathing dragons. The townspeople could…