When we overweight the value of experience in hiring situations or in navigating strategy, we increase our risk of failure. The challenge we face as leaders and managers is to imbue ourselves and our cultures with a sense of curiosity and the means and confidence to experiment.
I continue to be both amazed and humbled at the reception to my book, Leadership Caffeine: Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. In celebration of the sixth year since publication, I am sharing one secret on where the book idea came from and showing my thanks for your support with 3 very special offers for free books to the first to respond.
Getting strategy right is hard work. Most management teams struggle and many play with the tools of strategy, but never finish anything. Teams that get it right share some common traits, including...
Structure is a powerful management tool when developed carefully and focused on aligning your team's superpowers with the big opportunities.
It seems like everyone I meet is in search of tools to help improve performance and find time for the things that matter. Perhaps we are looking too hard at our technology and our apps to solve what is a distinctly analog problem. Consider the example of my pilot friend and his preflight checklist. Perhaps we need a checklist for living and leading.
All of us have the option to engage with others from a transactional or a transformational mindset. The transactional manager or coworker offers the bare minimum necessary for the situation. The individual with the transformational mindset strives to add value to every encounter. The cost difference between the two styles is negligible but the return from those who opt for the transformational style potentially remarkable.
When faced with a world of constant change, "getting good at dealing with next" is essential for survival as well as success. Part of the process involves rewiring our brains to view change as opportunity and adventure.
Success is much easier to attain when we tune in to our true purpose and the real impact we have on others. Once we discover that purpose and impact, we must articulate it through our personal narrative. Most of us are telling the wrong story.
Too often, we hesitate to make a decision or take action because we are insecure and uncomfortable over the possibility that we might be wrong. Instead of waiting indefinitely for a perfect certainty that will never arrive, give yourself permission to take action. Life is lived one moment and one action at a time.
Working professionals who choose to not invest in their own skills development and knowledge expansion are effectively saying, “I know enough.” They are defaulting on their futures."
