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Are you ever happy in your job?
I’m often shocked by the number of people who are hating their work every day, slogging through the grind. As a leader, wouldn’t you like to do better than that for your people?
Are our lives really just about surviving?
Read the rest of this entry »If you’ve done initiatives in business, you’re very familiar with this graph:
Often referred to as a “hockey stick growth chart”, it indicates how revenue will shift from investment mode (on the left) to wonderful growth (on the right). The problem is that this is always used to project the future, not the past. What actually happens is far messier and doesn’t follow a nice pretty growth curve.
This came to mind when I heard recent reports about why WeWork went bankrupt. Since I’ve fallen into this projected-growth trap myself, I thought it might be good to explore how we might do something different.
Read the rest of this entry »I don’t know about you, but most of the things I do I’m … barely competent at.
Not incompetent, mind you, but enough to get by. There are a few things that I’ve gotten quite good at, and during my life may have even excelled at something.
So I was heartened today by seeing a thoughtful quote that:
Read the rest of this entry »We all learn to hold back negative feelings, because it helps us to mature from childhood.
The negative side of this, though, is that those feelings (which can stem from misunderstandings, mistakes, and disagreements) can then grow until they emerge to cause real damage.
They can explode into arguments and destroy relationships. So how do we deal with this in the workplace?
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve worked on that project for, what, three years now? And it’s finally done, and looks great! Not perfect, but pretty darned good.
It’s important to embrace the achievement. Especially if you’re the leader and realize that the next hill to climb will be even tougher.
You might want to do your “project debrief” before people lose focus, or even start talking about the next goal. But you’ve missed the critical step:
Read the rest of this entry »Goals are wonderful! It feels amazing to accomplish something important and to celebrate when that happens.
But you have to realize that 99% of the time is not spent AT the goal, but on the hard work to get there. And that can be a slog.
Your team can get worn down by all the hard work, and lose their inspiration.
Read the rest of this entry »When we think about opportunities we encounter, it’s often with the perspective that the universe is being generous to us.
It’s not necessarily something we can create ourselves – it’s from the outside in.
But I’ve found that I have MUCH more influence on the opportunities which come to me than I ever thought possible. It starts with a surprising perspective which sounds like a contradiction:
Read the rest of this entry »This time of year, it’s common to think about giving. The holiday season seems to be designed to tap our guilt and elicit generosity.
Which is fine, I suppose. But if this attitude is just limited to a custom we do once a year, then it’s really not much more important than shooting fireworks on the 4th of July.
A nice experience, but then we move back to “normal life” – whatever that is.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many leaders in different kinds of situations, and it’s surprising how many get stuck on the “big picture” terms of Purpose, Mission, Vision, Goals, Values, Principles, Strategies, Priorities, and so on.
You might even be surprised where I end up with today’s message.
In my own language, I tend toward what feels like the natural English definition of the terms:
Read the rest of this entry »I’m the leader. I have the answers. And I have my act together.
And of course we all know that’s not true. But it’s the façade we try to show the world. Because it’s comfortable.
So how do you deal with your own imperfection?
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