Like a spotlight cutting through darkness, courage shines brightest in the presence of fear. It’s easy to boldly march forward when we’re filled with confidence, and the way forward is fairly smooth. It takes real courage — and strong leadership — to navigate our way when we’re full of negative fantasies and everything seems to […]
Read post »“The courage to look hard realities in the face is essential to effective leadership.” Winston Churchill “Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.” Alan Alda, American actor, […]
Read post »In Samuel Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot,” two tramps are waiting by a sickly-looking tree for the arrival of M. Godot. We never learn who Godot is or why he’s important. The tramps quarrel, make up, contemplate suicide, try to sleep, eat a carrot, and gnaw on some chicken bones. Two other characters appear: a […]
Read post »Years ago, I was captivated by Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi. When I finished reading it, I immediately went back to page one and read it again. The story centers on “Pi” an Indian Tamil boy who, after a shipwreck, survives 227 days drifting on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. With him in […]
Read post »“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” Robert Albert Bloch, American screenwriter, “Psycho,” “Psycho II” “We usually learn faster from pain than from pleasure. Strong dislikes are acquired faster than strong likes. In relationships, trust is easy […]
Read post »What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Overcoming fear has been a major theme in our work. Fear is appealing food for moose in the workplace. It attracts and nourishes them. Moose-on-the-Table is where everyone in a meeting knows there is an issue or problem, but no one is talking about it. It’s like […]
Read post »The last series of blog posts discussed visualization as “The Force” that can pull us forward. But it also has a dark side that can energize our fears. Fear and pessimism can be even more powerful. This Dark Force too often overshadows positive possibilities. Neuroscience shows we’re wired to focus on what’s wrong and picture […]
Read post »Visualization sparked my career and energized my life. When I was just starting out, someone recommended I read Claude Bristol’s book, TNT: The Power Within You. The book sparked such an intensity of energy and profound new awareness that I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep for almost a week. Even now, as I thumb […]
Read post »I’ve been studying and applying the power of positive pictures for most of my life. These skills, habits, and techniques are often called visioning, imagery, and visualization. They have a power for change, improvement, and energy creation that we’re only beginning to understand It’s hard to picture a positive, hopeful future if we’re not positive […]
Read post »Visualization energizes our dreams. The more vivid our visualization, the higher our energy and magnetic attraction. Neuroscience shows we’re hardwired to look for what’s wrong. If our ancient ancestors missed catching lunch, they’d keep trying for dinner. If they missed that rustling in the bush, they became lunch. We have a natural ability to imagine […]
Read post »That we are drawn by the future rather than just driven by the past is extremely important and directly contrary to the heritage of social science and the history of psychology. It is, nevertheless, a basic and implicit premise of positive psychology. Martin Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being When I […]
Read post »Decades of research has proven the power of visualization in athletics, health, and personal, team, or organizational effectiveness. We become what we think about. The following is an exercise I’ve used personally, with my wife, Heather, and many groups. Recently I led a group of high potential leaders through this guided imagery process as part […]
Read post »How big is your organization’s aspire/live gap? Does your rhetoric match reality? Is your audio synced with your video? Research and advisory company, Gartner, recently surveyed 7,500 employees and nearly 200 HR leaders of global companies and had in-depth interviews with 100 HR leaders. They found “on average, 69% of employees don’t believe in the […]
Read post »Imagine sitting in an overcrowded medical clinic waiting room and spotting this sign on the wall, “When your number comes up, please have your symptoms ready.” You won’t likely ever see that sign. It’s too honest. But there’s a high chance you’ll encounter that attitude. Too many organizations are inside out rather than outside in. […]
Read post »In a senior leadership team retreat last week, decision-making and meeting effectiveness emerged as a barrier during our moose hunting exercise. Meetings are more important than ever in our complex and interconnected world. Research clearly shows that when run effectively, groups make better decisions than individuals do. Effective meetings involve and engage participants in problem-solving […]
Read post »In 2004, Bill Gates told a group at the World Economic Forum “two years from now, spam will be solved.” Right. Like cockroaches, spam could survive a nuclear holocaust. This is one in an incredibly long list of expert forecasts that are ludicrously wrong. In 1995 co-inventor of the Ethernet, Robert Metcalfe, told us the […]
Read post »Is your organization staffed by human capital? Do you talk about head count? Do managers talk about “their people?” Phrases like “head count,” “human capital,” and “my people,” dehumanize and objectify. We could push this further and make the same argument for “human resources.” Managers who see others as an “it” or property, might make […]
Read post »Is your team or organization experiencing: High “snicker factor” about values Diminishing discretionary effort Rising absenteeism Turnover of top people Declining customer service Resistance to change Lower trust and teamwork Slipping quality levels Reduced health and safety These are symptoms of the cultural malaise or dysfunction many teams and organizations are experiencing today. How many […]
Read post »“Workers are more adaptive and optimistic about the future than their leaders recognize.” That’s a key conclusion of a major study by Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work and the Boston Consulting Group’s Henderson Institute. The study encompassed 11,000 lower income and middle-skill workers and 6,500 business leaders in 11 countries. […]
Read post »During a retreat with the leadership team of a large healthcare organization, we were running a little behind schedule so I said we’d move fairly quickly through the Responsibility for Choices principle in our leadership discussion. Fortunately, an astute participant piped up with, “Jim, I think we need to talk about our ‘blaming and disclaiming’ […]
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