Tag: Business
Take Your Candle, And Go Light Your World: Part 1
In my last post, “Find Your Inner Japan Grab,” I promised to kick off a series of posts that ask simple questions of you, so that you find that spark of inspiration that sets you apart from everyone else. To follow the metaphor theme, my hope is that through this series of self-exploration you’ll find ...
I’m Wide Awake
The kids and I were listening to a U2 playlist in the car recently. When the live version of “Bad” was over, one of my eight-year-olds said, “I don’t get this song. What does he mean, ‘I’m wide awake, I’m wide awake?'” I have heard this song no less than 1000 times since high school ...
Answering One Question Could Change Your Life
In the context of being inspired, doing purposeful work and subsequently becoming an authentic leader, there is one question that is sure to give insight to anyone that answers it. Better, it could literally transform you, if you let it. It comes from a fantastic little book called, “Find Your Great Work,” by Michael Bungay Stanier, ...
100,000+ Books on Leadership, Why Aren’t There More Leaders?
A former colleague that I admire and respect proposed writing a leadership book together. One of the first things I did was scan what was already out there. To my surprise, a basic “leadership” search on Amazon.com resulted in over 100,000 titles. While I admit my blog post title is presumptive (maybe there are more ...
The Time Has Come to Manufacture a Crisis
I have a favorite quote, “Nothing breeds motivation like necessity.” It sums up the challenge that plagues any person or entity in a position to try to change others: despite earnest attempts the last two decades in the fields of change management and engagement, the fact remains, people don’t like to change unless they absolutely ...
Turn on the Light
No matter who you are or what job you have, there’s a leader in you. However, sometimes leadership stalls between who you are and what others see. What do others see in you? One might call this self-awareness. I call it self-management. With the goal of being adaptable for anything that comes your way, knowing ...
5 Steps to Breaking Through Complacency
A reader of my last post, “A Foolproof Process for Acting Courageously,” made a humbling comment: “Good article. One thing I’ve found is that sometimes you can follow the rules in the article and no one cares to listen. I struggle not with the courage part, but with the ability to influence leadership with entrenched ...
A Foolproof Process For Acting Courageously
Over the years I have found and seen in others that courage is easy to talk about: put into corporate “core values,” notice when someone does a courageous act, proclaim it as key to leadership. We inherently know that even the smallest acts of courage cause an enormous, positive ripple effect to ourselves, others, places ...
I Changed, Where is Everybody Else?
Some of the best advice I got from a senior leader during a Leadership Challenge 360 feedback process was, “You’re always three meetings ahead of everybody. Where you want to go is right for the organization, but you need to bring everybody along.” I struggled with that feedback, until I actually tried “bringing others along” and ...
3 Tips For Being More Strategic, Starting Now
In the last post about strategic thinking skills, no places have been more important for strategy than in chess and war. In those contexts, strategy intended to render opponents useless. Somehow, that made its way into corporations, where also through strategy, we wage a different battle with products and services. Just as humility, integrity and ...
McLaren Consulting 