the most important sentence in leadership

The Most Important Sentence in Leadership

At its most basic, effective leadership consists of two key components.  One of them is the human element – that’s the part where you’re showing and telling the people who work for you that you’re glad they’re there.  This is the piece of leadership that gets the most attention, because there are an endless number…

striving for consensus

Is Striving For Consensus Keeping You From Moving Forward?

Recently my wife and I were in Barcelona, visiting her family and 87 of their closest friends.  (Not quite, but there were a lot of people.)  We were outside, it was a beautiful day, and it was time to decide where to have dinner.  The only thing everyone agreed on was that we wanted to…

Setting and Changing Goals

Why We Sometimes Give Up On Our Goals (And Why That’s OK)

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.  I also wanted to be a builder (which was my Lego-inspired term for ‘construction worker’), and I also wanted to dig up dinosaurs. I have done none of those things, and it’s perfectly OK.  I chose a different path, and I’m happy with it. …

decision making article

Overcome the Paralysis of Making Small Decisions

Sometimes I spend ten minutes trying to decide which pair of pants I should wear.  My wife has been known to agonize for weeks about what theme to choose for our children’s birthday parties.  And my brother once spent two years debating which couch to buy for his living room.  None of these are life-altering…

how to respond to a crisis

How Should You Respond To A Crisis? 

Ah, crisis. It’s a fun word to say, but that’s the only fun thing about it. Crisis brings massive uncertainty, and we generally don’t deal well with that. Besides, crises often bring the potential for something significantly negative without offering the potential for something positive. We call it risk when things might end well but…