You may never lead an auction in your life. But you probably do (or will) lead meetings. Last Friday night, I took my first turn as an auctioneer (and emcee) at the annual spring fundraiser for my kids’ elementary school. Now that I’ve run my first auction, it’s became obvious that there are massive parallels between auctions … Read more
Some months back, I shared a post about how we’re no longer in the information age–we now live in the interruption age. Do you feel more overwhelmed and distracted than you used to? If your experience is anything like many of the leaders I work with, you probably answered yes. Part of the reason we’re so … Read more
Meetings.(Cue the groans and eye rolls.) Nobody loves them. Let’s face it, most people would rather be anywhere else than in a business meeting. Are meetings doomed to be inherently horrible? Or have we just settled for mediocrity because we know no better way? This subject of “meeting madness” came with two groups I worked with … Read more
Has this happened to you? You’re leading a meeting. You’ve got 25 people scheduled to attend. (For simplicity, let’s assume all of your attendees are meeting in person together.) The meeting is supposed to start at 9 am. It’s pouring rain outside.At 8:58, you look around. Only 14 of the 25 people are in the … Read more
Our social world is governed by unspoken norms. Want to freak someone out? The next time someone says “hello” to you, just ignore them and don’t reply. (Just thinking about doing that probably freaks you out.) As someone who wants to influence others, you need to be particularly attuned to what people say to you. When … Read more
Emotional Intelligence. For more than a decade, it’s been shown time and again that Emotional Intelligence is a bigger predictor of success than education and skills. So why do so many emotionally stupid leaders still walk the earth? Last week, I was at a conference of a Fortune 50 company in the Energy Industry. Over 1,500 of their … Read more
Sometimes connections show up in the most unlikely of places. This past Saturday, my family played the chore game for the first time in a very long time. The chore game works like this: All of the household chores are written up on strips of paper. All the strips are put in a bucket. Each … Read more
