Access Your Artistic Side To Lead Through Uncertainty.
22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman burst into the country’s attention at Joe Biden’s inauguration like a brilliant sunrise. She’d been honing her craft for years below the horizon and the light of her personal brand had been growing steadily, living three lessons for...
Relearning CEOs’ Real Job From Bob Swan’s Failure At Intel
How is this a surprise? How many times do we have to watch companies put the wrong person in the wrong job? Bob Swan was a rock-star CFO and the wrong person to lead a technical design-focused company like Intel. At Intel, the “E” in CEO stands for Enable. They need...
Culture Is The Collective Character Of A Society. Manage It Or Perish.
Whether your society is a company, family, tribe or country, its culture is the combination of the characters of its members. While some members have more influence, all have some. So, manage positive and negative deviation from true fit - especially when hiring and...
Relooking At The Only Three Job Interview Questions
Yes, Virginia. There are only three interview questions. It was true when I first wrote about them in this publication in April 2011. And it’s still true. What’s changed is the order in which you should ask them and what you should look for in answers. The questions...
Three Keys To Improving Accountability (And Your Leadership)
“Accountability” is on every Corporate Buzzword Bingo sheet. It’s like “strategy,” “synergy”, and “collaboration,” in that it means different things to different people in different situations. Let’s start with Webster’s definition: “Answerable or responsible to the...
Applying The Current Best Thinking Framework To Your Own Career Development
If you are the best you can be, the only way to go is down. Couple that with former Stanford Business School dean, Robert Joss’s insight that only 20% of leaders have the confidence required to be open to help and the only possible conclusion is that we’re all works...
How To Gain Leadership Experience Without Experience
While artistic and scientific leaders can build strengths on their own for the most part, interpersonal leaders’ essential ability to interconnect can be built only by doing it. Strengths are made up of innate talents, learned knowledge, and practice-honed skills....
How To Beat The Odds And Make Equal Partnerships Work
Most of the time, equal partnerships are hard to make work because they are not actually equal. Furthermore, even if they are equal for one brief shining moment, they don’t stay equal. If you want to beat the odds and make your partnership work, you either need to...
How To Keep Your Communication Plans From Getting Derailed By Leaks
Not going to happen. If you think leaks are not going to happen, you’re wrong. With the Internet, everyone is a publisher. So, everyone can leak your plans. You have to assume leaks are going to happen. And, if you think you can keep them from derailing your carefully...
What Biden Should Do Now to Accelerate Progress in His First 100-Days
The election was a split-decision with Biden winning the Presidency, Republicans making gains in the House, and control of the Senate yet to be determined. There’s no doubt that the more President Joe Biden can reach across the aisle, the more effective his Presidency...
Why It’s Especially Important To See Glasses As Half-Full This Thanksgiving
Everyone on the planet has had issues this year. And we’re not yet through the dark times. It’s so easy to focus on all the bad things. But the way you feel is hugely influenced by what you pay attention to. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to the good...
Why Optionality Is Key To Post-Pandemic Planning
In normal times, leaders can choose between three strategic postures: shape, adapt, or reserve the right to play. However, for the vast majority of organizations, the only viable posture coming out of the pandemic is the third, reserving the right to play, keeping...
Three Essentials in Leading Through Adversity — Especially in a New Role
In leading through adversity: 1) Honestly and objectively assess the current situation – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 2) Choose your path forward, focusing on what you can influence and impact and letting go of what you cannot change. 3) Inspire and enable others...
Leading Through an Extended Pandemic – Marco’s Pizza’s Recipe for Success
The Stockdale Paradox provides a powerful framework for leading through an extended pandemic born out of Stockdale’s multi-year prisoner of war experience. The heart of it is “Unwavering faith that you can and will prevail with the discipline to confront the most...
More On Mitigating The Risks Of Onboarding Into A Smaller Organization
If changing organizations for most people is like driving from Ethiopia to Kenya, for an executive onboarding from a large corporate to a smaller organization it’s like the difference between driving a cruise ship and a canoe. In both cases, their instincts are wrong....
Three Pieces Of Advice From Moody’s Outgoing CEO, Ray McDaniel
Ray McDaniel came to a CEO Boot Camp on his fifth day as CEO in 2005. He came back to a dinner before another Boot Camp six years later to answer the question “What do you wish you’d known then that you know now?” He said three things: “I wish I had known the world...
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