“Psych safety — is it really a thing?” the chairman of a public board once asked me as we prepared for a meeting.   A staff member had just relayed to him that a board member objected to the new seating plan. That’s because she was now placed next to a male board...

A PR person recently asked me to write about "culture fatigue." (Many PR people think I'm a working journalist instead of a leadership coach/consultant who writes and they pitch story ideas to me. However, I did train as a journalist.) "Culture fatigue" is not the...

By day I nap and chew on toys, By night I swing by King Street bars If you know the classic country song “Detroit City”, you might identify this as a riff of the melodic refrain, “By day I make the cars and by night I make the bars.” The new lines describe Nigel the...

To what extent are you in danger of losing hard-earned skills as you work with AI? “Use it or lose it” applies to your brain on AI. Your brain is not keeping a skill it’s not using. If you doubt that, try to remember everything you learned to do years ago, stopped...

You know it when you see it. Traditionally this line is associated with obscenity, based on the 1964 Supreme Court case, Jacobellis v. Ohio. Justice Potter Stewart wrote in his opinion, “But I know it when I see it….” This line also applies to professionalism. For...

Executives have the prerogative to switch out senior leaders, but they need to exercise caution. Otherwise, they and the entire organization will experience "leadership churn." That's basically turnover on steroids, creating disruptions and causing dominoes to fall...

Next summer, my primary accountability partner and I will celebrate 20 years of regular weekly check-ins. We only pause for vacations. So why with this successful working relationship, did I suddenly triple my accountability partners from one to three this June? The...

Any summer reading plans yet? Typically this season is ideal for lighter fare, such as new fiction, twists on classics or even the masterpieces themselves. Another option is dipping your toes into non-fiction to give you a leg up on work projects, professional...

As a driver and a passenger, I dislike roundabouts, even though I know they are statistically safer than other intersections. Yet, even with my discomfort going counterclockwise, I didn't detect until recently my hypocrisy as a human being and leadership coach. Asking...