Leadership Insight | What are we doing to help you?

“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.”

~ Winston Churchill

Why do you have your own business?

Winston Churchill could have been an entrepreneur to have so eloquently dramatized the thrill associated with building a business.

Whether you own it yourself or share it with partners, it’s yours to build, to mold according to your dreams and values.

You may be building it from scratch or seeking new opportunities to jumpstart a mature company. In either case, I hope this will help you on your journey.

Want to build your own boat?

Independence, many will say, the chance to run my own show?

Be my own boss?

Do things my way – maybe because you’ve seen them done the wrong way and you can do better? (more…)

Leadership Insight | Building Consensus does not Build Success

Building Consensus ≠ Building Success

I have been working with a young CEO who recently acceded to her company’s leadership.

She was the successor to a more authoritarian regime and found herself working overtime to establish a more collaborative and less hierarchical environment.

She wanted to bring people to the table, encourage a stronger cultural bond among her employees and build a more inclusive culture that valued the contribution of each individual.

People welcomed those changes with open arms, eager to embrace a culture they much preferred.

Is it healthy if your leadership team agrees with everything you want?

What emerged along with a more engaging and transparent culture, however, was a cadre of executives so eager to please their new leader, and to be a part of her leadership team, that they acquiesced to every idea and plan. (more…)

Leadership Insight | First rule of a mistake: Admit it

“A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet,

strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you

when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.”

~ Charles Edward Montague

Everyone makes mistakes.

We know this for a fact, don’t we? It’s pretty clear —like crystal.

Why are we are so unwilling to admit our mistakes?

So, why do so many persist in their insistence that they did no wrong?

Despite the lessons that cover the waterfront — from Watergate to the Catholic Church — the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

What appeared to be minor tributaries turned into a rushing river of a failed presidency and international scandal, yet the stream of lies and denial from those who fail to heed these lessons continues unabated in both our public and private lives.

The truth will never come out … will it?

For some reason, we persist in believing that the truth will never come out. (more…)

7 Attributes to Tell if Your Organization is Getting Clobbered

Leadership | The 7 Attributes of World Class Organizations

What can you accomplish in a flash of time?

It lasts about 300 to 400 milliseconds. It occurs about 10 to 20 times per minute.

Over the course of a day, excluding about 8 hours of sleep, it amounts to about an hour and 20 minutes on average, a fair chunk of time in our waking day.

If you consider that the universe is about 14 billion years old, about 54,000 years would pass by during any given span of those milliseconds.

Some might argue that we can’t see anything during that period.

Yes, all that happens in the blink of an eye … about 1/3 of a second.

It ain’t much but in those small fractions, a lot can occur.

(more…)

Leadership Insight | Don’t Gamble with the Storm Clouds

Fly to the Light!Just after obtaining his pilot’s license, a dear friend from the Midwest found himself surrounded by unexpected thunderstorms. He clambered for every streak of sunshine he could find, ultimately zigzagging his way to a safe landing:[quote]“That principle is a metaphor for my life. It seems that I…

Leadership | Flying blind? Assume Crash Position!

Do You Need to Start Your Own Bonfire? Barely 500 years ago, Girolamo Savonarola was an outspoken and strident critic of the current order, angrily vilifying the worldly possessions that tempted people to become sinners. He was ultimately excommunicated from the Catholic church, condemned for heresy, stripped of his priestly garments, hanged, and his body burned in the town square in Florence, Italy, a stark and ignominious ending to a life committed to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Leadership Lessons | Does Mom think you should be a snitch?

“God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.”

– Thomas Jefferson

Does Mom think you should be a snitch?

Some of you may be familiar with the famed but controversial West Point Cadet Honor Code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.”

But didn’t somebody say: “Don’t be a tattletale?”

Few of us would doubt the wisdom of “will not lie, cheat or steal”, the core of many of the values we learned as children.
One of the other things we learned as children, though, was, “don’t be a tattletale.”
Be loyal to your friends, don’t snitch on them, and don’t go running to mommy when you observe a small infraction of the rules. It doesn’t help that we’ve seen countless movies since then where a snitch ends up on the wrong side of the grass.

What about the part, “or tolerate those who do”?

Thus, the controversial phrase, “or tolerate those who do.” (more…)

Leadership | How many distractions are YOU creating?

How many distractions do you own?

Does it seem like we’ve talked about distractions a lot in the past?
Maybe it’s just the ones in my head that makes me think so … which of course, is a distraction itself. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did write about distractions last April, “Are Distractions Destroying Your Brain?”
In “Just Plans … or Sleeping around”, I responded to the tempest by offering some ideas about how to defend your castle by building a moat, then some barricades, then some lookout posts. (more…)

Leadership | There’s a simple one-word formula to avoid an ass-whuppin’

PREPARE to Win … or get ready to get your butt kicked!

Many moons ago when my daughter was 3 years old, she really wanted a Barbie dollhouse for Christmas.

She never played with Barbie dolls … never liked them much either … but she loved all the little people and things in that doll house.

We found one and hid it in the attic to await Christmas Eve when we could sneak it under the Christmas tree.

My wife and I went up to the attic around 10 p.m. that evening and it was only then when I noticed the small print on the side of the large box … “less than 500 pieces.”

Assembly Required?

What? 500 pieces? To assemble? At this hour? Alas, yes … and man, was it painful to have to stay up until 3 a.m. putting it together. How’s that for preparation? (more…)