Category — Leadership

OK, that might be overselling it. But just a bit. It’s early in the morning and I needed to get your attention.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream,” not “I have a plan.” That’s what caught MY attention about Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk.

Ever start what begins as a reasonable political discussion with your parents… and 15 minutes later find yourself hip-deep in a mucky, confusing swirl, dreadfully off-topic and surprisingly upset?

This doesn’t just crop up at the dinner table, on the telephone, or with your family. Sometimes it happens smack in the middle of your team’s budget review.

I recently stumbled on a post that really got my attention, about people’s ability to hold a point of view – even when there’s strong evidence to contradict it. [Read more →]

Often, when I ask clients how they make decisions, I hear, “Oh, we mostly use consensus around here.”

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

Eight times out of ten, these are the same people who also note that group decisions often get reversed, people say one thing and then do another, or that their team spins and spins when they discuss potential decisions, investing loads of precious time but getting nowhere. What I often see is that “consensus” means a decision process that’s unclear or a wee bit sloppy, where the boss ended things with, “Oh, we’re out of time – but we’re all in agreement here, right?” But no one dug deeply for different points of view or concerns, let alone truly addressed them. [Read more →]

Imagine you have a colleague who gets all fired up around focusing more effectively on “the critical few.” He wants to clarify desired outcomes, delegate more, support small failures as learning, and challenge thought process and logic instead of details. Suppose he wisely recognizes that this behavior change will not only create value for his company, but will also unburden him personally, and have a pretty inspiring impact on his life outside work, too.

Now suppose he recognizes all this – can taste it, feel it, is deeply committed to changing his behavior – but when he gets to work Monday morning, he finds himself doing the opposite. Crum. He lets new opportunities distract him, accepts more responsibilities so he sacrifices non-work-related commitments, doesn’t ask for help, and doesn’t balance important, more strategic priorities with the urgent things that come flying at him. [Read more →]