“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” – Oscar Wilde We live in a chaotic world. When you turn on the TV, or pull up your favorite news or current events-related website, or look on social media, you see one crazy thing after another. There seems to be no end … Read more
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman There are a lot of balancing acts that leaders are expected to perform. Leaders need to consider what’s best for the business without losing sight of what’s best for customers or employees. Leaders … Read more
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs We spend a lot of time in this space talking about leading organizations. Today, I’m thinking more about us as leaders, and what it means to lead ourselves. I know a lot of leaders who work really hard and put … Read more
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler There are a lot of leaders who like to talk about how hard they work, how many hours they’re putting in, all the sacrifices they make, etc. For those … Read more
“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” – Jonas Salk Sometimes as leaders we struggle to figure out what’s next. We know things need to change, whether it’s how we lead, what we expect from our people, what we do for our clients or customers, or any number of other things. There … Read more
“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
“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
“Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso Many hours have been spent over the years trying to define what characteristics and behaviors define great leaders. Some things show up over and over again – work ethic, intelligence, integrity, etc. Those kinds of things will always matter. The world is always changing, though, and … Read more
“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
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell Planning is an important part of leadership. No organization was ever successful for very long without taking time to plan for its future. Regardless of size, purpose, location, or … Read more
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