Why and how you need to help people pay attention
Pay bills. Pay respect. Pay attention. If you’re a responsible adult, you do these actions, often without prompting. Yet, even when you want to pay attention to your leaders, co-workers, and trainers and learn from them, you may fail. Attention is necessary for...
How to create energy, emotion, and edge in your meetings
Do your meetings have the energy, emotion and edge needed to keep you and others engaged, performing at your peak, and achieving the results you want? If not, how would you describe your meeting experiences? You probably will refuse, but I hope you will take a moment...
How to toast my late mother, mentor, and dog
Please join me in toasting the memories of my late mother, a mentor, and Gustav who’s featured in an important new book on animal transitions. All three taught me valuable lessons that you may benefit from as well. As background, over a seven-day stretch in August, I...
How to improve your leadership skills by doing more improv
When leaders I’m coaching lament that they’re having trouble getting stuff done, I take them back to the basics. We examine their will (motivation), their skill (ability) and their ability to get over the hill (overcome any real or perceived barriers in their...
3 ways to be empathetic ─ and powerful
Don’t blame it on the youth. We adults – especially those in powerful positions ─ are guilty too. Even though we’re born with the ability to understand and share others’ emotions, we don’t always practice empathy. Worse, some of us point fingers at others, especially...
5 ways a golden thread improves your focus and clarity
Trying to tighten the linkage between business strategy and operations on either the organizational or individual leadership level? If so, don’t just talk “alignment.” Instead, emphasize the importance of knitting a “golden thread” throughout everything you do. The...
Are you disappointing or reassuring with your crisis messaging?
Stay quiet or speak out to your employees about the latest crisis? Yes, this is another dilemma facing CEOs and other leaders in our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. Some employees say they expect to hear from their leaders whenever something...
How to find value in bad role models
“If you can’t fix it, feature it.” This maxim came in handy when I was trying to role model good meeting behavior last week. By definition, respectable meeting behavior means showing up on time. And if you’re the meeting leader, you express your respect by being a few...
How to admit to a biased brain and overcome the backlash
Co-workers criticized me for talking about this topic, and then declined to work with me. Individuals – white and black – told me I was encouraging people to cop out. PBS chose not to air my comments for “America After Charleston.” (The show was a conversation about...
