leaders – CainEllsworth

Quitting Is Not An Option

“When you have exhausted all the possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.” – Thomas Edison I had a conversation with a leadership team recently that was really frustrated. They felt like their organization was stuck. It wasn’t that things were going poorly, but they weren’t really improving either. It seemed to all of them that … Read more

Change = Learning

“There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience.” – Archibald MacLeish Change leads to all kinds of things. Excitement, frustration, success, roadblocks, progress and setbacks. And probably a bunch more. Change is a permanent part of the human condition and so are all the things … Read more

Change On Purpose

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it’s the one that’s most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin I’ve been around a number of leadership teams lately that are extremely impressive for their intelligence. These are people who’ve got years of experience, and they’re extremely knowledgeable about what they … Read more

You Should Be Fighting

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” – Mahatma Gandhi Today’s conversation is about something that’s both obvious and incredibly difficult. I’m not sure I have anything wise to add, and I know I don’t have any magic bullet to make it easy. Every human being is unique. Each of them has different … Read more

The Best Us

“You don’t have to become something you’re not to be better than you were.” – Sidney Poitier Continuous improvement is something that every great leader strives for. They understand that performing at the same level in the same way today that they did ten years ago won’t work. They need to develop new skills, and … Read more

Start Walking

“As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears.” – Rumi The last few weeks in this space have been about change and not accepting defeat and not settling for less than our best. Our brilliant readers (not being sarcastic) have pointed out that each of those things sounds great until you … Read more

Don’t Make Peace With Underachieving

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” – Confucius We’re a month into 2026, and all I keep thinking about is change. Not just the global change we see, or technological change, but change for us as leaders in our own small piece of … Read more

No Pain Tolerance

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.” – N.R. Narayana Murthy Last week in this space the idea was that doing things to stay safe don’t necessarily keep us safe. After watching some leaders this week, I’m still thinking about that idea. It … Read more

Safety Isn’t Safe

“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.” – Gen. Eric Shinseki Human beings are wired to seek safety. I think that probably goes all the way back to our days living in caves. People in those days were facing death on an almost constant basis, so if they were safe in … Read more

We’re Not All the Same

“Being led with parity is like running a race where everyone ties for last.” – John Sensiba Treating everyone you lead fairly should be a no-brainer for leaders everywhere. Regardless of people’s individual characteristics, no team member ought to have to deal with unfair treatment. Not only that, as an organization, it can and does … Read more

GPS Blog

It's time to go "Beyond the Numbers".