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We’ve all been there, the greatest embarrassments of our careers.
The hard part is being really honest with yourself, as you probably saw the failure coming and just hoped that you’d be able to find your away around it.
Jim Collins articulated this idea well in Good to Great:
Read the rest of this entry »“More businesses die from indigestion than starvation”
— David Packard
Our culture makes it tempting to want to always grow a business. More customers, more products, more services, more geographical area, more employees … it never ends. Until it does.
This can be true of non-profits as well, just with different words.
Read the rest of this entry »It seems like a lot of my thoughts this month are gravitating towards flexibility and resilience! This week I’d like to explore what it means for a whole organization to withstand the buffets of change.
Even thrive.
Last week I talked about core principles of perspective, readiness, energy, learning, and trust. Well, it turns out that groups of people exercise these characteristics as well.
Read the rest of this entry »Last week I talked about three views of resilience. But that opens up the very uncomfortable question of whether “normal” even exists.
It’s easy to get depressed about all the chaos and uncertainty which seems to surround us. I feel that way myself sometimes.
But then I realize that it’s just requiring me to develop a new set of skills. And even though I’ve never been a surfer, I like to think of it as “surfing through the changes.” I like the image because, to me, waves seem very unpredictable and abounding in chaos.
Read the rest of this entry »There are a couple of ways to think about resilience.
The one we usually want to fall into is “rebounding back to normal.” After all, “normal” is the comfort zone and usually is our happy place.
The other way is to define resilience as “adapting to a new normal.” In this case, we have to admit that the world moves on, and the old normal may never exist again. Or parts of it might need to change.
Read the rest of this entry »That quote is attributed to Peter Drucker, the amazing leader who helped redefine business in Japan and then around the world.
It’s good to remind ourselves that plans and strategies are fine – even necessary. But the real foundation of getting anything done is the culture of the organization.
This brings to mind a year in an organization I worked for about twenty years ago. The company was getting into serious financial trouble, and it was noted that growth in the number of employees was getting out of hand while the economy was headed the wrong direction.
Read the rest of this entry »There are just some questions that just might be too scary to put out there.
This can be especially true if you’re a worker with relatively little power. When something looks just a little bit “off”, are you willing to ask to find out more?
Instead, we might deflect with “I guess that’s just the way it’s done” or “It’s above my pay grade.” Now, I get that – why risk a harsh response to a question that you may not be able to do much about anyway?
Read the rest of this entry »Sometimes it’s your job to communicate the bad news. It might be one of the toughest things you have to do.
There are plenty of resources which give great advice for doing this in personal circumstances, like when you have to say that a loved one has died. But I’m surprised that there isn’t as much help for doing this in the work context.
Over the years I’ve had to both receive and give bad news on the job, sometimes on the same day. I thought I’d share some principles which have helped me.
Read the rest of this entry »Your employees and partners are looking to you for direction. Perhaps you’re also looking for direction “upstairs”, whether that’s bosses, industry leaders, regulators, or whoever.
But there are many ways that top-down direction can fail:
Read the rest of this entry »In March 2020, the world started falling apart for everyone. We didn’t realize it immediately, but a week of shutdown turned into a month, then into a year and more. Most of us haven’t returned to the “normal” of 2019 and probably never will.
Sometimes you plan to change, and sometimes it’s thrust upon you with no warning.
I find it remarkable how well we’ve survived so far. Sure, we had tremendous inconvenience and quite a few businesses and organizations were forced to shut down. Industries were brought to a halt.
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The Values-Based Business 