I’ve been tracking how leaders have shifted their thinking and acting since the world was gut-punched by COVID-19. In doing this I realized that some of these insights could help others in their own work, so my next few posts will attempt to share these findings. To...
Evil bees were colonizing my brain. Their buzzing between my ears kept me awake half the night. The bees transmitted loud negative thoughts about what I did wrong that day, or what would go wrong after I woke. I had to find a way to settle those bees down. A friend...
I can’t blame you if you greet this post with skepticism. Leadership and poetry seems like an oxymoron, like rain and San Diego. I’m even a little surprised you are still reading. But here are lessons from two senior executives who recently used poetry to align their...
Take this thought experiment: Would you prefer a hamburger that is 90% fat-free or one that has 10% fat? Would you support a project with a 1 in 5 chance of succeeding, or a project with an 80% chance of failing? Despite both options being equivalent, I would avoid...
Fast Company magazine recently featured 50 companies they ranked as most innovative. My attention was not drawn to the super-cool technology start-ups, but to some old-line companies that successfully reinvented themselves. I wondered: Are the factors that lead to...
A client of mine is struggling to remain competitive in an industry where smaller, more agile competitors are nibbling away at their market share. They believe that their organizational culture needs to change in order to be successful. In a recent phone call with the...
