In a leadership position, even the small stuff … isn’t. People watch your every move. Get used to it.
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Ten Cultural Career Lies
I believed these lies for most of my life. Recently, the conventional wisdom started seeming suspect. I called several mid-career classmates and asked about their successes and failures. Upon close examination, much of what I had believed to be true about careers did not seem to hold.
Overcoming Email Overload
This article, originally printed in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge gives several different techniques for helping get email under control. The article was one of the most-read articles at HBS, has been translated into more than 7 languages, and reprinted in Entrepreneur.com, and several magazines.
Compromise is the Doorway to Opportunity
My coaching client Cyd wanted to change jobs. Cyd's work was OK, but not really inspiring. The pay was OK, but not really inspiring. The people? Ok, but not really inspiring. The big benefit of the job, however, is that it was a ten-minute drive from home. Cyd has...
Activation Required software poses a serious risk to your business
More and more software developers are selling software that must be “activated” after you buy it. Though this seems reasonable on the face of it, it quietly makes the vendor a critical part of keeping your business running. This article explores why activation-required software is a huge business risk.
Venture Moments of Truth
As ventures grow and develop, the challenges they present change. Often change is sudden rather than gradual. These sudden changes require a shift in the way the company and/or the top managers do business. These are times when coaching can be most valuable. The...
Firing Up Organizations in Tough Times
Things are very tight right now. Our outlook is uncertain and people are afraid for their jobs. Under these circumstances I'd expect people to get more done, but somehow, we aren't more productive than before. Any hints? It’s funny, being a human being. You would...
Organizational Learning is No Accident
Why do companies fail to learn from their mistakes? With so much riding on success, you would think that companies would be better at learning. Amazingly, it seems as if they fight tooth and nail against learning, often with disastrous results. The...
How Your Company Can Learn From Mistakes
Any ideas about how to capture lessons learned for a knowledge base—i.e. getting colleagues to NOT fear repercussions of admitting 'mistakes' and/or admitting what they did not know? First, the Truth: most of us are afraid to admit mistakes or ignorance...
Young Leader, Veteran Team
I am a projects and operations manager at a multinational oil giant based in Cape Town, South Africa. I have seven people reporting to me. I am twenty-four years old and the youngest member of my team—the ages range from thirty to forty-three. What...