Kent Burns Blog

  • November 11, 2019

    Relationships are hard.  I find this very interesting.  We live in a world where (most of us) are surrounded by people.  We grow up surrounded by family and friends.  We are surrounded by other students for (at least) twelve years of school.  We then enter the workforce, and we are surrounded by people at work.  [...]

  • November 5, 2019

    I’ve been in the recruiting industry since 1999.  About ten years in, I would occasionally think that I’d seen and heard it all.  For example, I once had a candidate who, feeling ill during an interview, pulled a thermometer from his bag…and took his temperature while answering questions.  I had a candidate show up to [...]

  • October 29, 2019

    I talk to people for a living.  Although much of my conversation is over the phone, even more is electronic.  And yes, I consider email as conversation.  Texting also.  They are all mediums to conduct dialogue.  In some cases, electronic communication is the only way some people will engage.  People don’t like talking anymore.  But [...]

  • October 15, 2019

    There are no tricks involved in breaking a board. Or a brick.  “What you have here is one of the most efficient human movements ever conceived,” say MIT physicist Michael Feld.  The secret lies in the speed and focus of the strike. Feld, fellow student Stephen Wilk and his karate instructor, Ronald McNair, set up [...]

  • October 9, 2019

    I’ve been a business owner for a long time now.  It’s been the greatest experience of my professional life.  The reason for me is simple.  I love it because my answers are in the mirror.  Every morning when I wake up, I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth.  It’s there that I see [...]

  • October 4, 2019

    “Genius is the ability to put into action what is on your mind.”  - F. Scott Fitzgerald Most people think that genius is for the few, the gifted, for someone else.  It’s reserved for those who are super-smart.  Who made straight-A’s in school and scored perfect on their SAT and ACT.  They’re Thomas Edison and [...]

  • October 3, 2019

    This post is part rant and part reality check.  We live in a culture where, more than I can ever remember, excuses are tolerated.  Excuses themselves are not new.  Humans have been rationalizing their behavior and their performance (or lack thereof) with excuses since the beginning of time.  I think it started with Adam: “The [...]

  • September 18, 2019

    My Team and I did a book study last winter.  The book was Atomic Habits, by James Clear.  James has established himself as an expert and thought leader in the theory and practice of habit formation. One of the interesting concepts in the book is initiating a new habit with ridiculously small steps.  Clear tells [...]

  • September 10, 2019

      I have a restaurant I go to at least two times a week...sometimes three.  It’s a local business, owned by a local businessman.  It’s always busy, and frequently there is a line of people waiting for a seat.  I go early to beat the rush, and sometimes that doesn’t even work. There are lots [...]

  • September 3, 2019

    This is a question that preoccupied one of my old mentors.  Why do some people succeed, and others don’t?  Why are some people able to learn a process, follow it and deliver results when others aren’t?  Over my 20-plus years in the recruiting business, I’ve seen some succeed and many fail.  In analyzing all that [...]

  • August 28, 2019

    Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor who ruled from 161 – 180AD.  He was the last of what are known as the Five Good Emperors, presided over an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire.  He was also a Stoic philosopher.  Some of his personal writings were later accumulated into a book [...]

  • August 21, 2019

    My wife and I moved our daughter into college this week.  This is the baby of the family, so it’s going to be a change for all of us this time.  She chose my alma mater, which has been a pretty awesome thing for me.  I haven’t spent a lot of time there since graduation [...]

  • August 13, 2019

    It’s a phrase I’ve heard literally a million times.  “I don't like to be micromanaged.”  It’s so overused, it’s become a cliché.  When someone says it to me, I do an internal eye roll. Consider this: “I like to be micromanaged.”  Said no one ever. Here are three thoughts on this topic. First, in my [...]

  • August 6, 2019

    I recently was having coffee with a CFO and I asked him, “What disappoints you about business today?”  He had no trouble answering.  There were three, specific things.  After hearing them, I was in 100% agreement with him.  Here they are, with some additional commentary from yours truly:   Technology enables inhumaneness. People hide behind [...]

  • May 21, 2019

    I’ve been a student of human behavior pretty much my whole life.  I’ve always watched people.  But it’s possible to look and not see.  I mean really see.  However, getting into the recruiting business twenty years ago has provided me with a PhD in human behavior.  I now can see things about people that they [...]

  • April 30, 2019

    I often talk to people who are in the midst of change.  Career change, life change, health change, you name it.  It’s in these times that we tend to become reflective.  We pause and take stock of the world around us.  We take a look back and see what we can glean from the benefits [...]

  • April 23, 2019

    My Grandpa was a wonderful guy.  He passed many years ago.  But, if he were still alive, yesterday would have been his 111th birthday.  A self-made man, I learned many things from him. Something I heard him say many times was, “It’s a long road that doesn’t have a turn in it.” As a little [...]

  • April 17, 2019

    I’m surprised at people, who...when given an opportunity to ask questions...don’t.  As a student of human behavior, it’s fascinating to me.  Questions are how we learn.  Questions are how we establish rapport.  Questions (or the lack thereof) reveal so much about a person. When I prepare people for interviews, a point that I stress is [...]

  • April 10, 2019

    I am a creature of habit.  I love my routines.  One thing that my friends and co-workers tease me about is my lunch routine.  I go to the same place.  Every day, M – F, with very few exceptions.  It’s a good place...bar food...about a half mile from my office.  Almost all the employees know [...]

  • March 19, 2019

    I have a history of back/hip/leg issues.  Been a problem for years.  I lived with it for a long time, until one day in 2014 my wife and I were at a show of some kind...It wasn’t the boat and travel show, but it was something like that.  Big venue, lots of walking.  I was [...]