Overcoming Catastrophe

Your department just made a catastrophic blunder that cost your company money and reputational equity. How do you recover?   By the time two of my direct reports walked into my office one evening everyone else had gone home, which was just what the pair had in mind. The news they carried was so bad, […]

The Three Dimensions of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders: Finding the Balance of Power, Heart & Mindfulness

Any discussion about leadership effectiveness would have to include the idea of emotional intelligence (EI). The research is consistent and clear: leaders with high EI are more effective and leaders with low EI get stuck or even derail. I think of emotional intelligence occurring in 3 dimensions: Power (height), Heart (width) and Knowing or Mindfulness […]

7 Ways to Make Meetings More Effective Over the Summer

When our meetings aren’t run properly, it’s a waste of time and money, especially during summer slump months. Here’s how to make meetings more effective over the summer. Summer days at the office can drag on, and so can meetings. But meetings are expensive. Say you have 10 employees who each make $70,000 a year […]

Ten Serious Career Networking Myths & Mistakes

Human connection and communication make the world go ’round – especially in business and the corporate environment. It’s impossible to have a successful business and career without the help and support of your coworkers, clients and community. Networking is an essential activity but it must be done conscientiously and with skill in order to be […]

6 Personal Branding Lessons Every Working Professional Can Learn from Trump and Clinton

Despite having the two highest unfavorable ratings of any major presidential candidates in history, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have outlasted their competitors—and one of them is going to become the leader of the free world. What does success in the face of such highly unfavorable ratings teach us about personal branding? And what can […]

Corporate Cultures – Overcoming Cultural Resistance to Change

The firm hand of culture drives what, how, and why work gets done. Consequently, attempts to change established policies, processes, or practices will meet with a degree of cultural resistance. Therefore, the challenge for leaders becomes how to effectively implement needed change in spite of this resistance; especially if the foundational tenants of the organization’s culture must be preserved.

Purpose Point of View

No matter which way you turn, the focus on ‘purpose’ is everywhere. Whether it’s Mark Zuckerberg joining Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in a Giving Pledge, the six biggest global communications firms putting differences aside in a U.N. Common Ground Initiative pledging to eliminate poverty worldwide, to the rise of socially conscious companies embedding sustainability […]

Leadership Lessons from the United States Naval Academy – Staying Informed of Current Events

Organizations operate within the context of their environment; the military being no different than civilian businesses. During their plebe (freshman) year at the United States Naval Academy, midshipmen are required to read two news and one sports page article each day in order to remain up-to-date on those current events impacting our nation and its military. Plebes are tested on their news selections and overall knowledge by upper classmen to ensure they are both conversant and understand the importance of the newsworthy events. Thus, plebes have impressed upon them the value of remaining aware of current events.

Value-Added Leadership

Every company has stakeholders, though a few with their own proprietary interests chart the course in their own vision, or lack thereof. Within every corporate and organizational structure, there is a stair-step ladder. One enters the ladder at some level and is considered valuable for the category of services for which they have expertise. This […]

We Don’t Know How to Hear Each Other: how biases distort our conversations

As a Buddhist, I don’t understand why anyone would want to take another’s life or how it’s even an option. Yet so many in our country are feeling disempowered and ignored, targeted and disenfranchised and we haven’t yet created a dialogue to heal. In fact, we don’t even know how to hear each other. During […]