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Last week I had the chance to see a virtual tour through the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
It took me back to when my wife created a quilt much like what you see here. What impressed me was the careful detail and commitment to such a long project.
We don’t tend to do that much anymore, instead focusing on instant gratification.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve found that this is the kind of attitude you’re trying to nurture in leading a group: Let’s do this!
It captures precisely the kind of energy that we’re going to need to do some hard work while having fun. And it conveys a sense of personal commitment to achieving the group’s result.
Even pride.
Read the rest of this entry »I have to confess that I’ve been cynical about AI. Which is a bit weird, given my tech background and inquisitiveness.
But I’ve seen some demos recently which are pretty interesting. Here’s what I learned: these tools don’t replace human intelligence. But they can simplify drudgery.
There are a couple of places which are particularly useful: Pulling together tons of data, and creating summaries.
Read the rest of this entry »I made a mistake this week. I overloaded someone with so much information that they backed away from a project. It became just too scary for them.
It wasn’t my intention, of course. I was trying to be helpful.
So what do I learn from this situation? Well, it’s not about hiding information. It’s about communicating in layers.
Read the rest of this entry »I had a great conversation recently with a speaker who introduced me to the phrase “Tyranny of How”. It took me a few minutes to get my mind wrapped around the concept, and now I see how it can be very useful.
Like many people, I like to map out all the steps – to have a clear plan – before I get started. It gives me the confidence that I know what I’m doing and can just follow the steps to success.
Unfortunately life doesn’t work this way.
Read the rest of this entry »I find out that I get much more done when I have a clear deadline.
I’m not saying that I let everyone else schedule my work – I don’t. But I do look for useful deadlines and then link my thinking to those.
I’m presenting at a conference coming up in a few weeks. My experience tells me that the last week should focus on practicing and coordinating with my co-presenter. So that means all the content needs to be created before that, which means the structure should be in place by … this Wednesday.
Read the rest of this entry »I spent most of my career in technology, so I became accustomed to having the industry change very quickly. I appreciate that the professional coaching industry doesn’t move at quite that pace. Chasing waves of tech can get crazy.
When it comes to supporting my clients, I could argue that what we learn today is basically the same as it was three years ago. Or thirty. Or 300, for that matter. Because it’s about listening, helping them think through issues, and to chart a course forward.
I imagine that 300 years ago the role of a coach was performed by the wise elder or good friend. And the relationship was described as “wisdom” or “helping.”
Read the rest of this entry »When you’re at a point of making a decision, there’s usually a “good” direction and “bad” direction. But we usually pick the third option … doing nothing.
Now that doesn’t mean we need to rush things too much, which can result in a bad choice. But in our current environment, we’re overloaded with data and tradeoffs and options, which can put your lizard brain into freezing up.
That itself is a choice, even though it doesn’t feel like it.
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve spent the last five years staring at peoples’ Zoom backgrounds.
It’s interesting to see how this has changed. At first, it was just the view of someone’s kitchen. Then generic green-screened pictures, and now lots of blurring.
But it does bring to mind how much we pay attention to the larger context of every conversation.
Read the rest of this entry »When I was working for Corporate, yearly evaluations were the norm. I noticed that every employee would skip over the ten pages of recognitions for job well done, and immediately look at the “Areas for improvement” on the last page.
It frustrated me as a manager, because it completely imbalanced the focus of our conversation.
The truth is that people get a lot more traction from focusing on what they’re good at rather than what they’re not.
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The Values-Based Business 