One of the fun concepts my co-author Michael Couch and I introduce in our soon to be released book, Strategy Driven Leadership (here is our new cover!) is the idea of using mantras to help people find short cuts that change behavior and are easy to remember. In working with one leader who tended to jump in and problem solve for his team before they even had a chance to finish their presentation, his mantra became “shut-up and listen” that...

Ever since Daniel Kahneman came up with the ideas for cognitive biases in 1973, the world has been heading steadily downhill. We used to think that the brain was a clever thinking machine, working 24/7, creating new ideas that advanced the world. Instead, this Nobel Laureate showed us the brain is basically a lazy organ, just trying to get away with as little as it can, and coming up with one cute trick after another to make its life easier....

One thing that I hear from senior leaders is how much enjoyment they get from coaching and guiding members of their team. They recognize that today’s aspiring leaders want guidance and want to get it in a way that is tasty and digestible. My colleague, Michael Couch and I discuss some of these strategies in our soon to be released book, Strategy Driven Leadership: The Playbook for Developing Your Next Generation of Leaders, which will be out in late November....

We think we can do it all. We call it multi-tasking, but it should more properly be called “serial-tasking.” If you don’t believe me try this exercise. Draw 2 parallel lines. On the top line write, “Multi-tasking is a myth.” On the second line write the numbers 1-20 below the line. That task should take you about 20 seconds. Now draw another 2 lines and this time we’re going to shift between tasks. Go ahead and write the letter “M”...

Recently I was talking to a CEO who was sharing about how he is working with his leadership team to think about the “value creation” they make for their customers. For him, value creation means improving his customer’s state of being. He expects his team to meet their customer’s needs and also wants them to go beyond that objective to find new and better ways to think about how their products and services improve their customer’s abilities to serve their...

I visited the coast of Northern California last week meeting with some prospective clients. One of them invited me to go to a “you-pick-em” strawberry field at a local commercial operation. This fellow, who is now the CEO of a thriving technology company shared some of his background with me in response to my questions related to how he built his successful business. He thought it was best if we started at the beginning. He told me he came from...