The Wall Street Journal recently reported this: “Software giant Microsoft Corp., in a recent survey of more than 20,000 people, found that 87% of employees say they are productive at work, while only 12% of leaders have confidence that their workers are being productive.” I’m protective of the C-suite as those are the people I […]
I was racing to my office from an appointment when the light ahead turned yellow—the universal indication to hit the gas, which I did. The guy ahead of me, however, saw the yellow light with a different mindset and braked. Luckily, no metal was bent. Although I won’t justify my driving habits, it made me […]
An upcoming trip to fly-fish on a tributary on the Amazon caused me to buy some heavier equipment (i.e., rod, reel, fly line, and flies). The fish down there are river monsters. A trip to the park to try out said gear was humbling. My casting is pretty good, but with that heavy gear I […]
When you view life over the long arc of history, the picture is phenomenal. Death, disease, poverty, war, and other nasty things—when viewed with a 100-year lens—have declined and many things have flourished. If you don’t believe me, pick up Steven Pinker’s book, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.” When I […]
A client recently said, “The one on ones our managers are doing are turning into counseling sessions! How much is too much?” Great question. As a guy who grew up with a single parent, a mother who was very much a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” type of gal, my natural inclinations are skewed […]
168 is an important and immutable number. It’s one that we all share, the number of hours in a week. No one gets more, no one gets less. (Unless it’s your last week on earth or you were born on a Tuesday.) Most of you can, in great measure, control part if not most of […]
My wife and I recently had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica. The driver who took us back to the airport to fly home was an articulate, well-informed, 50-year-old man. We started to talk about the economy, Costa Rican society, and the government, and he painted a bleak picture of decline that I was unaware […]
Recent news from Ukraine is that four top Russian generals were killed on the battlefield. The story goes on to identify this sad but unique fact because of the top-down leadership style that Russia still hews to. Only “the big guys” are smart enough to make the tough decisions so they must be on the […]
After returning from a recent trip, I called my wife from the airport to see if she wanted to get dinner. She’d already eaten and said the fridge was bare, so I decided to use my monthly “grease and salt” ration and stop at a drive-thru. I pulled into the burger joint drive-thru with three […]
A line I’ve heard many times in my career as an executive and executive coach is, “I can’t afford to fire/lose him/her.” Most often, the story is one of a single point of failure. The person they’d like to part ways with (or make a significant behavior change in) has one or more of the […]