Metrics Over Mission
When results are poor, check that everyone's north star is the customer’s experience rather than the scorecard. because focusing on the score takes you away from customers. And of course, that defeats your entire goal.
War Games
Would you rather watch than read? Click here for the 8 minute video. The war in Ukraine has left us all feeling some combination of sadness, anger, and hopelessness. It also reminds us of just high the stakes can be when trying to anticipate the future. Apparently, the US government tried modeling the possibility of a potential […]
Are You Playing the Wrong Game?
Watch the matching video. One of the hardest things to gauge in a new organization is what is expected. At the grandest level, we call this culture. But the broadness of the term “culture” can obscure the insidious ways it messes with us. Here’s a different cut at the culture question –and one that intersects […]
How Was Next Year?
Happy New Year! Watch the video here! Take a minute and imagine that you were an Olympic diver. As preparation for the world championships, part of your training includes regularly visualize that winning dive. In your mind’s eye, you see and feel yourself walking up the steps to the board, taking the steps to the […]
Less is More in Strategy
Prefer to watch rather than read? Here’s a short 6-minute video. Gardening Sometime early in the pandemic I decided I wanted to have a flower garden. I began planting things. Some of them grew well, some not. Eventually, it became a colorful garden. But soon, my pretty blooms got straggly, and stopped flowering. I was […]
Is It a Fact?
Let’s say you are on your way home from work. It’s a Thursday. You get a text from your boss. It says: “Please see me tomorrow morning.” Before you have finished reading, you will probably have a physical reaction. It may be a sudden surge of adrenaline, a sinking in your stomach or an instant […]
Favorite Things-Podcast Edition Summer 2021
Now, for a special summer delight: It’s been years since I did a favorite things post. But, as we slowly ebb into “normal” life, here are some of the podcasts I’ve been listening to. I listen while I… I admit it, I’m a bit of a podcast glutton.Here is a sampling of those I’ve been […]
Self-Loathing Rock Stars
Creating successful startups is hard. Those who sign-on understand that from the beginning. They are making a bet on the future of this enterprise, and in return for that possibility, they stake their energy, time, and an ongoing commitment to it. In return, they hope to create something that has never been done before. To […]
Get Awesome Coaching Without a New Coach!
We revere great coaches in our culture – whether in sports, politics or even business. But we almost never address what conditions allow a coach to thrive — that is, what condition must the person being coached generate in order to successfully gain value from a coach. Successful coaching takes a very specific set of […]
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
We have all heard of the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Mostly, the way we use that idiom is as a sort of shorthand for a superstition that if we think something bad will happen it mysteriously will turn out that way. But there is an insidious, and verifiable truth behind the phrase. Maybe you […]