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 […]
The Curse of the “Striver”
As I celebrated yet another birthday in April, I notice that I am less able to multitask. Tasks that I could once do quickly take me just a bit longer to complete. I also need more recovery time after multi-day meetings. If you are over 45, you may have encountered similar limitations. It’s a reality […]
Purpose: Finding Your Sweet Spot
About five years ago I got really serious about articulating my professional purpose. At the time I was moving through a lot of life changes. I was spread thin across too many projects. The work was interesting but I felt like I was not having much of an impact. I remember telling a colleague, “If […]
Five Things to Do When You Join a New Team
A move to a new organization or different team within your current organization can feel disorienting and stressful. You want to earn respect, be liked, and find meaning in your new venture, but the stakes feel high. They hired you for this position – now you have to prove them right. It’s easy to get […]
Discover Your Inner Saboteurs
For many years I’ve been asking my coaching clients to complete a free online self-assessment instrument developed by Shirzad Chamine, Stanford University lecturer and author of the New York Times bestselling book Positive Intelligence. His assessment helps identify “saboteurs,” the voices in your head that generate stress and undermine your potential for happiness and effectiveness. […]
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 […]
ON MY MIND: The Wisdom of Chickens
Chickens? Wisdom? Give me a chance to explain. When I’m working with leaders I often find myself coming back to three words of advice inspired by author Greg McKeowen – “protect the asset.” He wrote: The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and […]
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Think Again by Adam Grant
The old saying, “seeing is believing” doesn’t really describe how we operate as humans. If you’ve spent any time with me in a workshop, you’ve probably heard me tell a favorite story that challenges this conventional wisdom. There’s this elderly couple. The wife Ethel becomes concerned that her beloved husband Joe is losing his hearing. […]
ON MY MIND: Becoming an Adult
In a blog about “post-traumatic growth,” I explored how our most painful life events can positively shape us as people and leaders. Healing from trauma requires that we see ourselves as capable of growing – even transforming — during the course of our adult lives. Some believe that reaching adulthood is the culmination of surviving […]
ON MY MIND: Post-Traumatic Growth
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” —Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning I’ve always been interested in self-repair – the ways in which we put ourselves back together after things fall apart. Over the last year, more and more of us are feeling a little (or […]