On April 18, 1783, George Washington announced the end of fighting between America and Great Britain. The freedom won in the American Revolution came at a high cost: of the 200,000 Americans who served in the war, 25,000 died. This staggering number represents about 1 percent of total American population at that time. Over the … Read more
In working with hundreds of organizations, a recurring theme is that greatleaders develop other leaders. On paper, that’s an easy concept to grasp: it’s pretty obvious. However, the challenge in the real world–the too much to do, not enough time to do it real world– is that developing other leaders gets pushed aside for other priorities.Important … Read more
What do the best leaders do that the rest of us don’t? I discovered the answer to that question for one top leader this past Tuesday. I was in the executive conference room at the headquarters of a large food-service company. With me, scattered around the gigantic table, were four of their 100 District Managers, … Read more
What’s the net net ROI of your IP? Oops. Sorry about that. I’m just getting over a case of idiom illness.Whether you call it slang, jargon, or buzzword bingo, there’s an epidemic of corporate-speak going on in our organizations. It’s so prevalent, many of us are not even aware we’re using it. It wasn’t supposed to … Read more
What was the best thing about 2015? I posed this very question twelve times, on twelve days, to twelve senior executives over the past two months. Now this was no casual, offhand question. I was speaking with these executives on a ballroom stage, in front of an invited audience of 300 of their company’s mid-level … Read more
My friend and neighbor Todd has two twin boys, Emmett and Leo. The boys are three years old and describing them as a “bundle of energy” doesn’t do them justice. I ran into the three of them (of all places) in the locker room of our local YMCA.They had just finished a swimming class and … Read more
Anyone can steer the ship when the seas are calm. Publius Syrus, Roman Author, 1st Century BC How do you show up when things go wrong? Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote: Between stimulus and response is a space. In that space is your power to choose. In that choice … Read more
How’s your day going? Busy. Really busy. Crazy busy.Shouldn’t this interchange be officially banned? After all, isn’t ‘busy’ what’s expected? Isn’t busy–and its variants (full, jam-packed, maxed-out, loaded-up) the new normal? You’re busy. Wow. Join the club. According to research from the Society for Human Resource Management, 70% of employees work beyond scheduled time and on … Read more
Leaders are in the job of creating experiences for the people they lead. Great leaders are particularly intentional about crafting the arc of that experience. They know what note they want to leave things on. They plan out their arc so that people walk away with a clear vision of what’s next. Great leaders plan … Read more
Organizations, by their very nature, are designed to create processes and systems. There’s a good reason for this: there’s a need for the various parts to work together to create outputs. On one hand, this makes sense: without results, we won’t stay in business. But on the other hand, there’s a flaw in the design: … Read more
