FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Fierce to Fire, Two Books for Mastering Candor
My last two blogs were about building a team culture of candor and courageous listening. But to do both well, what teams really need is a culture of skillful candor. Communicating with candor without skillfulness can be experienced as attacking, unloading, or showboating. It can be hurtful and drive people back into avoidance masquerading as […]
ON MY MIND: Courageous Listening Opens the Door to Candor
In last week’s blog, I wrote about what it means to foster a team culture of respectful, real-time candor in contrast to one of inauthentic niceness. It’s easy to conclude that candor is all about speaking the truth. But the key to building a culture of candor is in how we listen. Teams in which […]
ON MY MIND: The End of Niceness: Building a Culture of Candor
There is a problem with your team. It’s niceness. I’m not referring to treating people with civility and kindness. I’m referring to an inauthentic politeness that involves withholding important critical feedback and avoiding difficult conversations. Niceness in the way I’ve defined it above gets in the way of your team’s learning, improving, and building true […]
ON MY MIND, A 3-PART SERIES- PART 3: Four Mental Hijackers
In Part 1 of this series, I introduced four “mental hijackers” that undermine our efficacy as leaders. The second blog examined two of those hijackers- worry and regret- and how to overcome them. Now let’s look more closely at the other two mental hijackers – resentment and resignation. Both of these hijackers tend to show […]
ON MY MIND, A 3-PART SERIES- PART 2: Four Mental Hijackers
In my previous blog, I described four mental hijackers – internally generated distractions that take us out of the present moment and cause us to lose focus and perspective. Now let’s look more closely at two of the hijackers – regret and worry. Regret causes us to focus on how we’ve let ourselves or others […]
ON MY MIND, A 3-PART SERIES- PART 1: Four Mental Hijackers
We live in a world of information overload where it’s easy to lose focus on what matters most. From a 24/7 barrage of social media to fervent multi-tasking,- we’re distracted by micro-urgencies that scream for our attention: right now! But in addition to these glaring external distractions, there’s a secondary, subtle set of distractions that […]
ON MY MIND: Real Success Comes when Job Performance and Values Align
Imagine an employee who is extremely good at her job, who exceeds her performance goals every quarter, and who clients describe as “indispensable.” Imagine that it’s because of her that your company has grown so fast over the past few years. Now picture this: Whenever things don’t go as planned, your “star” employee yells, threatens, […]
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Courageous Leadership: Leading and Living with Integrity
“What would you do with more courage?” This phrase, in the preface of Shelly Francis’s book, captured me. It immediately brought to mind what I would do: Instead of trying to control a challenging situation I would trust my intuition. I would be willing to make the wrong move. I would draw more frequently on […]
ON MY MIND: The Bulldozer Effect, How Not to Influence Others
Lately, it seems like conversation has become a competitive sport in which the end-game is to “win” or have one’s opinion proven right. In order to win we present our airtight cases and debate to convert others to our way of thinking. There is nothing wrong with these influencing tactics but when they become the […]
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute
My least favorite kind of book is the modern-day leadership parable: Too often the characters are simplistic and the narrative stilted. An exception to my distaste is The Anatomy of Peace, a book inspired by real events. The Anatomy of Peace tells a compelling story of people who, despite having every reason to hate one […]