10 Questions to Help You Envision the Future

Leading Change

10 Questions to Help You Envision the Future

Some leaders have a sixth sense of what lies ahead for their organizations and markets. The leaders who do this well tend to be branded as visionary, or in some cases, “out there.” Many leaders, however, need to develop their strategic skills, and could benefit from a framework to help broaden their perspective beyond the day-to-day. If you have a difficult time carving out time, much less … [Read more...]

Bring Your “A” Game to Drive Change

Highly matrixed organizations are complex in and of themselves, often fraught with ambiguous reporting relationships, inconsistent agendas, and slow, ill-defined decision-making processes. Leading cross-functional initiatives through a highly matrixed organization can be confounding -- on a good day.  Leaders who have learned to navigate the complexities are a special … [Read more...]

Is Lack of Reflection Holding You Back?

Of all the leadership skills my clients choose to work on, the most under-valued is reflection. It’s not that anyone is incapable of reflection, it’s more about prioritizing it and carving out time to make it happen. Let’s face it, it feels so much more productive to, well, produce something. You crank out emails, respond to Slack messages, send texts, interview people, conduct staff meetings, … [Read more...]

Clearing Space to Focus on What Matters Most

The end of one year and the beginning of the next gives most of us cause for pause. “Out with the old, in with the new!” sounds so festive when the bells are chiming at midnight. Yet, it’s difficult to embrace new habits and approaches when the old ones have served us reasonably well. That is, until they don’t. If, for instance, you find that driving meaningful change for yourself, your teams … [Read more...]

Catalyst for Change

The magnitude and frequency of change over the past year has been daunting, testing even the most competent leaders. While many were able to right the ship (especially in those organizations amenable to eCommerce and Zoom), few leaders would qualify the last year as one in which their teams and organizations thrived. As organizations begin to shift their attention to a post-pandemic life, there … [Read more...]

Relationships Rule

Of the four Emotional Intelligence (EI) competencies, retaining, growing and managing relationships is one of the more challenging to master.   For one, it requires an investment of time and energy, sometimes with no immediate “pay-off.”  It invites vulnerability, which, let’s face it, is not always comfortable.  It also depends on the other three EI skills (Self-Awareness, … [Read more...]

The Possible Dream … Work-Life Balance

An article from Entrepreneur highlights some interesting research noting that 66 percent of full-time employees strongly believe they don’t have work-life balance. In our “always on” world this is probably no surprise. Nonetheless, that does not mean a healthy work-life balance isn’t achievable for you and your team. Afterall, as a leader, your team looks to you to set the pace and to model … [Read more...]

Hats Off to Dogged and Disruptive Change

Hats off to those of you who laugh at the face of danger and yawn at the status quo (you know who you are!).  For most leaders, however, the constant drumbeat of change is draining and uncomfortable. A leader’s tendency to resist or embrace change varies dramatically and is driven largely by her perception of the risks and benefits.  It sounds straightforward, yet rarely is.  Once … [Read more...]

What Can You Control, Really?

Woo!  There’s A LOT going on across the world stage right now. These are not your garden-variety gnat-type changes that annoy you for a little while, or are easily remedied by clearing out the fruit bowl.  No, the pace and magnitude of change is more like one of those tenacious, squawking seagulls at the beach that make you cover your picnic basket and grab a stick to protect the … [Read more...]

How do you spend your most important asset?

24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, or 8,736 hours a year.  That’s what we get.  It’s the one resource we all have in common.  The difference, of course, is how we each choose to spend this incredible gift of time. Off the top, most of us spend somewhere around 56 hours of each week sleeping.  That leaves 112 waking hours a week.  Then, if you take the “normal” workweek of … [Read more...]