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David Porter Advisors

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David Porter

A Permission Slip

A former colleague just started a new job. I remember him for many things, but I thought about him today because he is one of those all too rare people that speaks his mind about things large and small in the world. That makes him an intriguing person because he

Invigorating Customer Service

Last week, I spent nearly an hour at a title company related to a real estate transaction. The lobby was nice enough — Keurig machine, water, and snacks for the waiting clients. Just after I arrived for an 11:00 closing, a realtor, and her well-dressed client walked in. At about

Cuting Through the Noise — Move to Doing

Hearing, listening, knowing, and doing walk into a bar. Or at least doing steps in as he is the only one that is, well, doing. A shared leadership problem is that we confuse listening with hearing, and knowing with doing in our communication. This confusion creates barriers to getting results,

Overcoming the Illusion of Communication

Most of us have experienced effective and ineffective communication in our businesses. We marvel, often in frustration, at the efficiency of the grapevine (perhaps now morphed into the Slack-vine). We wish to control our messages, but the informal network adds its meaning and velocity. We send out a message to

Celebrating the Challenging Boss

Over the course of a career, we work with dozens of bosses. We often look at bosses with a sense of wonderment because they have some magical powers bestowed upon them by their titles and we believe they hold our future in their hands. It follows that our experiences with

Everything's Made Up!

One of many profound lessons I’ve learned during my career is that everything’s made up. This is a powerful and liberating message for employees and leaders trying to improve an organization. Why? Because if something’s made up, then we are free to invent its replacement. Whenever I

Focused Customer Service

It was a particularly busy Saturday night at the Bubble Room Restaurant, located on southwest Florida barrier island, Captiva. The usual one-hour line of guests crammed the bar, and every table filled with diners. I was serving a five-table downstairs section and another server, Scott, was in the section next