Check Your Premises
Good decision making requires the maintenance of rational thought – and few things are more conducive to that objective than an adherence to something most of us were taught in middle school: the scientific method. The scientific method encourages us to develop …
Dr. Laura & The Pursuit of Clarity
William F. Buckley was the founding editor of a publication called National Review. He also hosted a TV program called Firing Line from 1966 to 1999 where he and another intellectual would have a deep and almost always insightful conversation for a …
Productivity – Some MindSet Thoughts
One of my more intellectually interesting and inquisitive friends recently asked me an interesting question: What is the most potent driving force for spurring productivity? It was a question that I had not previously considered. As I now reflect, it seems that …
Dear Seeking Wisdom
The short essay below comes from an advice column written by a lady who goes by Dear Sugar – her real name is Cheryl Strayed. Dear Sugar received a letter from a reader (who used the name: Seeking Wisdom) asking Dear Sugar …
So You Have A Culture Code, Now What?
Most companies have a list of cultural values. The existence of such a listing is neither meaningful nor impressive unless the company can specify what it’s DOING with those values. A more current term for “values” is Culture Code – and it’s …
How Do You Listen?
Leaders do a lot of listening. We just often do it wrong. Jennifer Garvey Berger, the CEO of a London-based coaching and consulting company called Cultivating Leadership, has laid out a brilliant model for categorizing three types of listening. It is smart …
A Huge Deal: Crap Detection
In 1914, Professor John Alexander Smith addressed the first session of his two-year lecture course at Oxford as follows: Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies that (will) form a noble adventure…Let me make this clear to …
Keep Hope Alive
There is a phrase first said by Jesse Jackson on July 19, 1988 at the Democratic National Convention. He was addressing the convention having lost a nomination battle to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Although I have heard the phrase repeatedly over the …
How to Manage Remote Employees
Many business leaders today are facing a new challenge: how to effectively supervise and lead employees who are working from remote locations. Truth be told, this has been a vexing challenge for years, but now the number of supervisors facing this challenge …
Leading Through Scary Times
Humans react well to unexpected good events. We don’t, however, react well to unexpected bad events. When such bad events occur, fear is the emotion that results. At low to moderate levels, fear can stimulate action; at higher levels it can be …