After the Notre Dame fire, the French government announced a design competition for the ruined steeple —and sparked a fiery debate about tradition and change. Leaders, too, are often debating what to change and what to keep. They ask themselves “Should I stick with the old or move to the [...]
Productivity stagnation is one of the great mysteries of the recent US economy. Despite more technology, productivity is still stubbornly low. Economists may debate the reasons, but there is no doubt that at an organizational level, leaders themselves are a key piece of the productivity puzzle. Leaders that allow themselves [...]
At its essence, an organization is an idea machine. It will thrive or languish, live or die, according to the quality of its ideas. Is your organization a good idea machine, a bad idea machine, or meandering somewhere below its potential? Is it generating the kinds of ideas that will [...]
Many people are getting excited about the Game of Thrones final season. Some of the most popular characters have been “skin changers”—wargs. In the GOT universe, a warg is someone who can project their minds into the minds of animals like wolves. It is a useful power, but comes with [...]
Many organizations have things, but that does not always mean that they benefit from these things. An organization can have a performance system, but leaders are just fill in the blanks without much guidance or thought to help people develop. An organization can have innovative ideas, but has not gotten [...]
There are a million ways to feather a nest and a million ways to make a dollar. Some swallows thrive in mud nests under bridges. Cactus wrens thrive in saguaro nests. Burrowing owls thrive in, well, burrows. Those are the conditions that suit them the best. It would be untenable [...]
If you are waiting to innovate in your organization until you come across that “best-thing-since-sliced-bread” idea, you may be waiting a long time and missing a lot of opportunities.
There are some things that can be deferred with little to no consequence: lawn chores, washing a car, missing a recycle day, etc. There are some things that are advantageous to defer. You might defer income to a future tax year for tax planning. BUT there are a host of [...]
“Who” is the lazy man’s root cause. The senior leader of a company that deals with landfills related being rebuffed by the leader of an environmental non-profit with “I don’t want to talk to you. You are the guys that throw stuff in landfills.” Really? Scapegoats are easy to find. [...]
Want to see where you are hitting the wall? Take everything on your to-do list, estimate the time to complete, then schedule on your calendar right there next to all your meetings and commute times. How does it look? Are you overbooked? Double-booked? Triple-booked? An accountant might call this exercise [...]