Do your employees find you intriguing, captivating and full of fresh new ideas? I hope so. Do they find you predictable? Even more so, I hope so. Being both intriguing and predictable seems like a conundrum—an enigma—like you couldn’t be both. You can. But of the two qualities, if you could pick only one, I [...]
[Continue reading...]Gaining Perspective Through Adventures
May 13, 2011 Leave a Comment
Leading is an adventure. Especially in this fast-paced, rapidly-changing world. Regardless of the industry or the marketplace in which you play, few leadership competencies are more critical than perspective: Being able to think globally. Seeing issues and challenges from the broadest possible view. Posing future scenarios with ease. Where does perspective come from? It’s not [...]
[Continue reading...]Are You Boring?
April 29, 2011 Leave a Comment
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein claimed, “No one real is boring.” She’s right. The most interesting people I know are the ones who are genuinely who they are—no phoniness, no pretense, no trying to impress. They’re congruent. Think of someone you know like that. They’re true to who they are, unwilling to compromise their integrity and [...]
[Continue reading...]Rituals Rock
April 14, 2011 Leave a Comment
Remember your first day on your current job? What did you do? Did you sit in a room by yourself and read procedure manuals or don a safety hat and goggles and hop on the back of a forklift to tour the company’s two-block-square warehouse? Studies show that how a new employee is introduced and [...]
[Continue reading...]The Paradox: Ego & Humility
March 30, 2011 Leave a Comment
Humility. The quintessential character trait. Right? Remember when Jim Collins, in his book “Good to Great,” said that two-thirds of the companies he studied didn’t make the leap from good to great because they were weighed down by the “presence of gargantuan personal ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company?” [...]
[Continue reading...]Five Whys to Leadership Challenges
March 14, 2011 Leave a Comment
You’ve undoubtedly heard of Five Whys: the problem-solving technique developed by Toyota after World War II to improve its manufacturing process. Its goal: determine a root cause of a defect or problem. It’s used a lot within Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. My take? Leaders can also tap into this tool to improve their [...]
[Continue reading...]
