Thought Leaders

Fear in the workplace is like putting shackles on continuous improvement. When team members have fear, the very best in potential performance and the highest aspirations of the organization are mired in concrete. What would cause apprehension and tentativeness in the...

Empowered teams are powerful teams. They can get "stuff" done. Teams that are DIS-empowered feel/look/smell like this: De-energized Helpless Listless Weak Fearful Useless De-valued Teams that feel empowered feel/look/smell like this: Bold Eager Confident Energized...

Nobody likes annual evaluations. Well, perhaps a few masochists or sadists do, but none of the rest of us do. Why do those yearly events cause us so much angst? From my experience on both sides of that table, it always feels painful due to the judgmental-prescriptive...

Leadership, effective leadership, is a shared endeavor. Just like intelligence, it is always collective; never singular. Yet, some think otherwise. They think... Accountability flows only in one direction. Others only improve with their help. Dissent should be...

In most organizations, we've got the people we've got. Only in the rarest of situations does the leader of an organization get to craft the team from scratch. And in most organizations cleaning house and starting over is not an option. Some leaders I have watched...

One of my mentors asserts that "every decision is a political decision." Over the years I have come to appreciate the wisdom in that assertion. I have also come to believe that every decision we make is an ethical decision. Each and every decision we make reflects our...

Every team, every organization experiences turbulence. Stuff happens that is unsettling, disruptive, distracting, off putting. How we respond to turbulence has a lot to do with how well we ultimately achieve the outcomes we desire. It also has much to do with the...

Good questions have extraordinary power to make us think and reflect.  Here are three very simple, very short, very provocative questions: 1) What have you learned lately that has made you better? 2) How did it do so? 3) What do you think you need to learn next? GO!...

 Simple choices can change trajectories. Consider what might happen if we were to...      > Choose to be authentically present      > Learn something new, continually      > Help someone -- anyone -- every day      > Challenge dogmas and question...

Folks who work in the trades have many kinds of tools at their disposal. Some of the tools are quite pointy and/or extremely sharp. Scalpels used by surgeons and picks used by jewelers come to mind. On the other hand, some tools have wide reach and are, by design, not...