Did you know that the average person is exposed to enough information in a day to fill 174 newspapers (85 pages in length) from cover to cover? Think about this for a moment – it’s staggering. There is almost no place you can go without being confronting by information, even public bathrooms now have ads and promotions inside the stall vying for your attention. And, while we love our smart phones and tablets, it’s seductive to stay connected day and…
We are passionate about changing the way people think about leadership. We have taught our Charting Bold Creative Leadership training to executives and organizational leaders and we’ve supported them to understand that they will have more power, and their organizations will have more success, if they help individuals at all levels in all roles step into their leadership. Families, organizations, and communities everywhere need each person to step into their leadership, regardless of their role. Yet, we find over and over again, that people have…
If you are like the rest of us, you sometimes find yourself in situations where you don’t have a drop down menu. Your drop down menu consists of all the options your brain scans when you are confronted with an opportunity or a challenge. It works great unless your drop down menu doesn’t have an option that fits the situation, or if the drop down menu you have used previously is no longer helpful. While most of us feel quite…
Me? Blow it? The truth is, we all blow it. As leaders, team members, staff, parents, adult kids, neighbors, you name it; it’s human nature to blow it from time to time. And, here’s the paradox about blowing it, if you handle the moments after you realize what you’ve done well, you can actually build greater trust, loyalty, credibility and intimacy despite having blown it. So, it’s important that you learn how to handle “blow it” moments thoughtfully and with…
It seems an almost universal experience that at some point in our lives we will need to build a great team. It’s not just those of us who need to run a corporation or a non-profit, it’s also those of us trying to gather together wonderful helpers for a elementary school classroom, or parents looking for amazing people to support their family. When we want to build a team, we are all faced with the opportunity (and the challenge) of…
Fear has a funny place in our culture – it is both sought after and it is abhorred. As a species, we are comfortable with fear on our own terms – like when we watch horror films, ride rollercoasters, or engage in adrenaline-rushing sports. In these instances, it’s quite clear what is causing the fear and, more importantly, what we need to do to manage the fear should we begin to feel overwhelmed by it. We are…
In our last two posts (“Be Thoughtful About Your Message” and “Be Thoughtful About Your Message, Part 2“) we recounted an experience we had with an online, professional group and its leadership. In short, there had been much discussion and an explicit commitment to creating transparency among the leaders and the group. When the originator of the group, Mark, publicly disagreed with the leader, Anton, on how things were going, Anton deleted Mark’s communication and didn’t mention it to the…
Last week (Aligning Your Words and Your Actions) we described our participation in an online, professional group that was started to create a team of experts focused on providing high-quality, responsive programs that were of service to clients while building brand recognition and professional success for the providers. The early stages of the project were done online, in view of the entire group. And then it happened. A post arrived in our mailbox from the originator of the idea,…
We recently participated in an online, professional group created to provide high-quality, responsive programs that are of service to clients while building brand recognition and professional success for the providers. Early in the negotiations of this group, one of the members, Anton, stepped in to help the originator, Mark, lead and guide the project forward. The early stages of the project were conducted online, in view of the entire group. In fact, it was easy to watch and to…