I was having lunch with the CEO of a mid size company last week and he was telling me how stressful the workplace is for his team. Among the many challenges they have, perhaps the greatest is meeting the financial and operational demands put upon them by their venture funders. I asked him how he addresses the stress on the team and he told me that when he brings it up, he finds that it usually transitions into “complaining”. He...

Everyone views his or her own life challenges in a highly personal way. What some people may say is an incredibly difficult work situation; others may say that those kinds of demanding circumstances get them juiced. That is a function of our DNA and life experiences. Resilience is a bit like politics; it is all local, and that locality usually begins with those 4 or 5 inches of matter between our ears. I was talking to a client a few...

Sheila and I were on holiday this past week at The Sea Ranch, one of our favorite places to get away from it all. The Sea Ranch is located on the Northern California coast about 2 ½ hours from San Francisco. On one side of Highway 1 is a small swath of land where homes are built so as not to disturb the natural landscape of this rugged and beautiful land. While relaxing and enjoying the fog rolling in off...

My friend, Will Clower posted a brief video of his radio request to the Cunningham Draw Bridge (North Carolina) operator to open the draw bridge so that he could take his sailboat out into Pamlico Sound. The request: “Cunningham Bridge, this is the SV Amari requesting opening outbound.” Then a voice returns on the radio, “Roger that Cap’n, we’ll have one ready for you.” Then, like magic, traffic stops, the Bridge roadway goes up and Will and his crew boat...

I was meeting with a team last week that had been charged by their company president to develop the organization’s leadership development program. The team had spent the last 9 months developing a leadership model, creating training modules, and building a coaching approach that would be state of the art for their firm. They were ready to roll out the program when the big stop sign shot up in front of them. Budget constraints, timing and the readiness of the...

Two events happened last week that got me thinking about how success breeds success. For the past year or so a colleague and I have co-facilitated a CEO cohort group. The group meets to address common issues and concerns they face in their industries. They share best practices, problem solve issues, and support each other as they discuss their greatest challenges. They like and respect each other as well, of course. In our last session it seemed as if the...