
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
Last week a client said something fascinating: He said he didn’t really know his people. Prior to our work together, that is. A little context: He was the manager of a team he invited me to be a part of to help facilitate communication and improve functionality. Now...

You Can’t Choose Success
I heard John Mayer in an interview once make a brilliant statement: “The problem with success,” he said, “is that success justifies every stupid decision we’ve ever made.”The irony of some success is it doesn’t always come as a result of good choices. It’s like that...

Leadership: A Skill or an Art?
A lot of people seem to operate under the assumption that Leadership is an Art — that it’s an intuitive action and should therefore come naturally. That great leaders are ‘born’ with the skill to lead, just lying dormant within them until they come across a team. It’s...

Following the Thread of Leadership
Can your team see the thread of your leadership at work? At a human level, people want to see, need to see, the connection between decisions being made and the reasons for those decisions. Without that, they can feel like automatons simply complying with instructions...

One Simple Step To Turn Your Office Culture Around
I once worked with a team that was — and there’s no gentle way to put this — highly dysfunctional. Most of the team was unhappy and in conflict with the manager, who couldn’t really see the problem. When I asked the manager about the problems the team had listed, he...

What Do You See?
Paradox: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. - (Dictionary v2.3.0) We have trouble with paradoxes, don’t we? Is seems to me that so many people much prefer...

Vulnerability Is…
… Leadership. To put it simply, if you are not willing to be wrong, not willing to be vulnerable, you’re not really leading. Doing only that which you know works from the past, or leading only those who agree with you, is not leading. To lead is to be vulnerable, to...

People Who Enhance Us
I’m not walking around with just my left or my right side -- or just my front without my back. So I don't believe our spouse 'completes' us. I've never believed that. We are, each of us, whole, complete people, so another person 'completing' us just doesn't make sense...

No, It Doesn’t Happen By Accident
Some things just happen by accident. We discover an amazing recipe, a back way for our commute to work, or meet a new friend. They can't be planned, and when they happen, it feels like magic! Most people seem to think that work culture is one of those happy accidents....

Life Is Not Zero Sum
“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” - George Carlin Why do we so often treat life like a zero-sum game... …that any win you get is a loss for me? If you're right, I must be wrong,...