No matter how good a lion you are, you can’t see well if you’re surrounded by nothing but fog.

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May 31, 2021

The naturalness bias may push us away from fairly evaluating people who have had to work hard for success and towards people who seem like “natural” successes — even when we say we value the things the strivers are living.

May 31, 2021

August 4, 2020

What Business Are You In?

August 4, 2020

Change is a given in life and work, but we frequently anchor our identity in the past or to things we cannot control. There is a huge difference between being attached to a durable, lasting sense of mission (“what” and “why” we do things) rather than our business models (“how” and “where”). Getting the two confused can have a terrible price.

August 4, 2020

July 30, 2020

Pace Yourself

July 30, 2020

Ever been told “it’s a marathon, not a sprint?” Most people intuitively understand the suggestion that we should start slow and conserve our energy. Even if you’re someone who only runs when being chased, we can still learn from this.

July 30, 2020

July 28, 2020

Falling Off The Path

July 28, 2020

All of us have ambitions, and all of those come with a list of things that need to be done to see them through. But there are always temptations to do things which don’t help advance our cause. We unpack advice on dealing with the real source of our issues.

July 28, 2020

Advanced Leadership: Trust and Responsibility

July 28, 2020

High-performing organizations choose to empower and trust their employees to do the right thing. They also enforce accountability for those standards. The alternative is to try to micro-manage each individual, which creates oppressive organizational cultures and environments, and eventually saps the employees and the organization of vitality.

July 28, 2020

July 27, 2020

Do We Crawl, Walk or Run?

July 27, 2020

There is plenty of glittering advice that promises to catapult us and our work into the next realm of performance. Before we embrace this advice, we should be sure that we and our organizations are ready for it.

July 27, 2020

July 15, 2020

Don't Forget Context When Offering Advice

July 15, 2020

The Harvard Business Review article, “Look to Military History for Lessons in Crisis Leadership” offers Covid-era leaders advice drawn from throughout military history. Much of the advice, though, needs more nuance and context to be fully applicable to modern leaders.

July 15, 2020

June 29, 2020

And Then What?

June 29, 2020

Slogans capture and channel our dreams. Iteration, adaptation, and the hard work of implementation make them real. Pausing to ask “And then what?” isn’t an admission of defeat. It’s a sign of wisdom and maturity, a willingness to at least start trying to think more deeply about complex and troubling problems.

June 29, 2020

June 23, 2020

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Strategy?

June 23, 2020

Change is in the air. As we enter mid-2020, organizations and populations everywhere are grappling with a series of powerful social, economic and political shocks. There has never been safety in clinging to the status quo, but it is even less of an option now.

June 23, 2020

May 21, 2020

When Is It Okay to Quit?

May 21, 2020

It’s said that quitters never win and winners never quit, but is this true? For highly motivated people, the drive to achieve can be a direct line to accomplishment or into a dead end. The key is the ability to discern when our goals no longer suit us. Ironically, this can be hardest for the best-motivated.

May 21, 2020

Pliny the Elder

**Great for the soul, not entirely conducive to productivity…**

Perfect Reading Conditions

July 28, 2023 in Reading Notes

Reading with Pliny, not reading Pliny…