Time is the true source of wealth in our world. The average life expectancy is less than 3 gigaseconds. How are you using your time to impact those you encounter?
Leadership Caffeine™—Less than 3 Gigaseconds
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The Leadership Caffeine Blog
New Program Helps Drive Big Outcomes with Small Changes
Large scale organizational transformations often create more problems than they solve. That’s why my new Level-Up program focuses on identifying discrete behaviors that what adopted and reinforced, offer the potential to drive big results.
Leadership Caffeine™—9 Lessons from the North Woods
There’s no shortage of leadership and management lessons to be found in the hard, manual labor found at a north woods property. While to many, the work might seem overwhelming, for those secure in the knowledge that they are creating something remarkable for those around them, the work is just part of the price of admission to success.
Leadership Caffeine™—Sweeping Incrementalism for Big Results
The big fixes complete with broad frameworks and their own vocabularies are alluring. They also are sinkholes of despair and frustration for groups unable to translate the ideas into coherent actions. Instead, focus on the small, subtle changes in behaviors that offer the potential for big results. I call this: sweeping incrementalism.
Leadership Caffeine™—Awkward Moments
Our work lives are punctuated by awkward moments thrust upon us at various points in time. Any first day at a new job. Every last day at an old job. The day you learn your boss was fired. You liked this boss. Meeting your new boss at the firm buying your company. The...
Leadership Caffeine™—Think and Do Differently
Our reflex action is to follow conventional thinking and apply accepted processes to solving problems at work. Leaders looking to spur innovation have a different approach. They think and do differently. They understand that every problem offers an opportunity to spur creativity and catalyze innovation. Thinking and doing differently is their mantra, as they deliver oxygen to their firms in the form of much needed innovation. If your firm or team is suffocating, it’s time for you to think and do differently.
Leadership Caffeine™—Foster a Culture of Creative Disobedience
Yesterday’s models of managing and leading emphasized coordination and control. Both are in opposition to the needs of today’s organizations for ideas and approaches that blow up traditional ways of doing things. A core job as a leader today is to promote more creative disobedience.
Leadership Caffeine—Creating Myoshu
Our leadership and management focus on productivity ignores the critical need for us to move strategically. For most of us, strategy is a series of incremental moves around a long-standing theme. Today’s world demands that we find a way to punctuate equilibrium or we risk going out of business one efficient day at a time.
Leadership Caffeine™—Turning Ambiguity into Advantage
The world is filled with uncertainty and ambiguity, yet we teach our children, students and team members to work according to the rules and to color within the lines. Instead, we should teach our teams to leverage ambiguity by writing their own rules in pursuit of a shared goal. And effective leaders understand that action begets action and ultimately insight, even in the most uncertain circumstances. Sometimes, you just have to “paint the wall” while searching for the next step.
Running on Empty? First, Eliminate the Energy Sinks
Energy always flows from the source to the sink. In your hot water heater, the water is the sink. Eventually, the consumption of hot water is capable of exceeding the capacity of the source. The same applies in our professional and leadership lives. It’s essential to identify and eliminate the heat sinks in our daily lives to free capacity to focus on the work that matters. Here are 12 ideas to help you with this important mission: