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I totally understand the need to manage a business carefully and to know what your financial status is at all times.
But building a generous business is investing for your future. The nice thing is that you can totally decide how you want to exercise this. For example:
- Giving your employees the opportunity to contribute time/money/products to causes they’re passionate about
- Letting your customers have more leeway than is normal in your industry
- Doing high-visibility sponsorships to expand your brand image
- Working with key partners in win-win scenarios to benefit your community
But what does it mean to approach things with a spirit of generosity?
Read the rest of this entry »A leader’s primary reason for being is to instill hope.
Think about it: Why would an employee want to work for you? Because they hope for a stable life and valuable work, with people who make it interesting.
Why would a customer want to buy from you? Because they hope you’ll fix their problem or address a need they have.
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve all been there, and we’ve seen it happen to others.
You’re doing fine for a while, working super hard in a stressful environment, and then something inside you senses that you’ve hit a limit. It might be a feeling of crushing overwhelm, or a more general lack of energy and direction.
We’re human. We have limits.
Read the rest of this entry »Sometimes we think our job is about just doing our job.
But if that’s the case, I’m going to quickly become bored and uninspired. Even with the prospect of pulling in a paycheck, I’m going to lose interest. Sure, I’ll do the job – I have integrity – but I’m not going to be inspired by it.
As a leader, your job is to help people become inspired.
Read the rest of this entry »Where do you get your inspiration from?
It’s an important question when we get bogged down by details, by differences and disagreements. Which is SO easy these days.
But all of that doesn’t give you energy and the inspiration to move forward.
Read the rest of this entry »I love the coaching approach because it tends to look optimistically at the future. In regular life, we all fall into traps of being depressed about how messed up things are, and how impossible it will be to surmount the obstacles in front of us.
What you have to realize is that it’s mostly a story in your head. Sure, there are barriers and challenges ahead. But that’s been true since the day you were born.
And you overcame most of them, right?
Read the rest of this entry »This last year has worn us out. Sure, we can blame Zoom Fatigue – which is a real thing – but the honest truth is that we’ve an intense period of uncertainty, fear, instability, and even boredom.
But this is going to continue, and we wonder if we’ll ever experience “normal” as we had it a couple of years ago. I suspect not.
So how do we keep our energy up?
Read the rest of this entry »I want to express my appreciation for all of you who have stuck with me for so many years. I’ve been publishing a newsletter since 2010, and have received an incredible amount of support and valuable feedback.
Thank you.
And that’s the subject of this article, actually. Expressing thanks for the great work that people are doing, whether paid or not. This is something I’ve learned with leading volunteer groups, but just as important for my employees.
Read the rest of this entry »Some days it’s hard to get focused. And stay focused. This can be a struggle for everyone on your team.
It’s understandable: There’s a lot going on, a lot of big, big issues and concerns.
So the first step on this path is to cut yourself a little slack for being … human. But you don’t want it to stop there, right?
Read the rest of this entry »Is your organization headed somewhere specifically? Somewhere important?
I recently heard David Burkus talk about the concept of being on a “crusade”. It’s similar to how I’ve used the concept of “mission,” but the word has more emotional impact.
David talked about three kinds of crusades:
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The Values-Based Business 