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Ted Does TEDx
What would you talk about if you were invited to speak for no more than 18 minutes to 100 bright university students? At 10AM on a Saturday morning? In December? In balmy Madison, Wisconsin? That was the challenge I faced after exchanging emails with a client’s...
How to Make Strategy Live When You’re Not in the Room
Quick. Tell me the strategy of your organization. For bonus points, tell me how your team and your role fits into that strategy. And how it affects your actions each day, especially in terms of what you choose NOT to do as a result of the strategy. If you’re like most...
How to Make Money and Do Good at the Same Time
When is the last time you changed the world and made a profit at the same time? Chelsey is a new friend of mine who helps lead Medicare Operations at one of the biggest health insurance companies in the US. I know health insurance companies are about as popular as...
Why Purpose Kicks Greed’s Butt Every Time
Recently, my almost-15-year-old son was assigned a project for his computer science class at school. The task was to profile a technological innovation. Several of his friends chose self-driving cars. He considered studying a technology that enables faster online...
I Gave Up Criticism for Lent
I gave up criticism for Lent. This seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve noticed how I reflexively see and point out flaws in those around me - clients, colleagues, friends. And then there are my kids. And myself. There are so many flaws to point out and fix. It’s...
Choose Joy
I don’t know about you, but some days I hate my job. I wake up to a calendar full of meetings - or worse yet, a day with few meetings at all and a deep sense of smallness as I wonder why no one wants to spend time with me. I feel pressure to swing the day’s events in...
Are You Critical Thinkers… or Just Critical?
You’ve probably been in a meeting where someone floats an idea that’s imperfect, maybe even half- baked. They do it tentatively because they know the thought is emerging like a calf out of the womb, wobbly and likely to crash land onto the floor of the barn. It rests...
Four Temptations of Teams Under Pressure
You’ve been in this meeting: Your leadership team is facing a whole bunch of bad news. What seemed like a plausible plan just a few months ago now seems in jeopardy. Maybe worse, it seems like a pipe dream. You look around the room. The team has the usual characters:...
The Moments You Live For
My friend Amy tells of a woman who runs a company that makes architectural stone. She has many moments during her days - meetings, specification reviews, logistics strategy, customer visits. Those are all good moments, part of the joy and challenge of leading a...
Integrity Test
I was in a meeting recently where a leadership team was grappling with their long-term direction. They’re doing what many leadership teams must do - trying to discern how to kick-start growth in their business. It complicates things that they work in the healthcare...
Getting started on the right foot
Coaching is all about building constructive relationships with other high performers. It's easy, especially if you already know the person, to skip a very important step when you begin to coach someone - or to coach them in a different way. If we just show up one day...
Reappearing Act
“Where have you been?” my friend Jeff asked recently. “I haven’t seen a post from you in like… months!?!” Fair question. Where do I begin? My last post was dated September 3, 2014. When I posted that piece, I knew it might be some time before I resurfaced. My dad had...