Keeping Your Executive Leadership Team Sharp
One of my greatest joys is working with highly motivated executive teams – particularly within organizations that have moved from small and scrappy to mid-sized and more formal. A question many of these teams ask is: How do we make sure our team stays sharp and effective as our organization grows? It’s a great question! […]
Becoming a Non-Anxious Leader
We live in an age of anxiety, and it is contagious. One of the most common self-defeating patterns I see in the leaders I coach is a failure to distinguish anxiety from legitimate urgency. You may be asking yourself: What’s the difference? Here’s how I define the two: Anxiety is an emotional state — often […]
Part 3 – Leading Better Meetings: Stage-Setting for Success with ACORN
Pilots don’t just throttle a jet down the runway and into the air. First, they check out the plane, set the GPS, and confirm the basics with their co-pilot. Likewise, the most successful meetings involve a “pre-flight protocol”. But too often eager leaders simply launch into their agenda and miss the opportunity to properly set […]
Part 2 – Leading Better Meetings: Only Meet for the Right Reasons
How many times have you found yourself sitting in a meeting and silently asking: “What the hell am I doing here?” “Does ‘this’ actually justify being in a room together?”Maybe it’s a standing weekly meeting that no longer serves its original purpose. Or, a promised status update that has turned into an endless presentation with […]
Part 1 – Leading Better Meetings: Why Good People Have Bad Meetings
I’m not sure I need to convince you that there is an endemic dysfunction afflicting our workplaces – terrible meetings. Regardless of whether they are virtual or in-person, meetings can be really bad for a variety of reasons: Meetings aren’t taken seriously. People show up distracted and underprepared. They are skeptical about whether anything of […]
Five Questions to Answer Before Embarking on Strategic Planning
Each year organizations invest significant time and money in strategic planning efforts that, according to managers who participate, result in limited impact. Why do these efforts fail to produce the anticipated benefit? In my opinion it’s a lack of readiness or, more specifically, a failure to answer five questions: Are you driven by fear or […]
More Faces. Less Facebook.
Take a minute and think about your three or four dearest friends in the world (excluding your intimate life partner). Now be honest: When was the last time you had an in-depth, heartfelt conversation with each of them? Yeah, when I asked myself this question about a year ago I was disappointed in my answer […]
Five Lessons Surfers Can Teach Us about Strategy
On a recent trip to California I ventured out to a place known as “surfer’s point.” The waves were more than 12 feet high and the undercurrent was strong. Looking up and down the coastline I counted nearly 100 surfers, young and old, testing their skills and courage in extraordinarily challenging and unpredictable conditions. Challenging […]
Resources for Building Bridges Across Divides
Lately I’ve been yearning for reasons to feel hopeful. Our country feels more polarized than ever and, regardless of political affiliation, people seem less interested in listening, more self-righteous, and quicker to dismiss and label the “other” as the “enemy” or “idiot”. I’ve seen this dynamic spill over into families and even the workplace. So, […]
All You Have to Do is Ask by Dr. Wayne Baker
Not asking for help is one of the most self-limiting, self-constraining, and even self-destructive decisions we can make. – Dr. Wayne Baker About eight years ago, while I was having coffee with a Denver-based client, I mentioned my desire to reduce work-related travel. I went on to ask if he might connect me with potential […]