If you live in the United States, you have to know it is Election Day.   Direct mail, yard signs, neighborhood canvassers, radio and television ads and more – all add up to an important day in the life of a democracy. This post isn’t about politics, and while I have often written about what we

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In a Bud to Boss Workshop earlier this week, a question was asked that I had some trouble answering at first, and because of that I have been continuing to think about it. Without exposing any confidences from the group or providing too much detail, the crux of the question was something like this: Are

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We all grow up with stories. Stories of our family, stories from our friends and stories we read. There are stories we hear at school, at work, on television and in the movies. Stories are everywhere! And while you’ve been around stories your whole life, you also likely realize that stories have been around forever.

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This short post is prompted by Dan Rockwell’s great post yesterday on his fine Leadership Freak Blog. In it he proposes that “what’s important to you” is the most powerful question of all (read it, it is less than 300 words  – and the comments are awesome too).  While I’m not not great at “give

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I am proud to be an American.  And I’m never prouder than on this day – Constitution Day.  223 years ago today a group of American citizens ratified our Constitution.  I am not a historian, and it has been awhile since have studied the process that lead to the creation of the U.S. Constitution (Here

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Whitfield and Strong wrote it. Marvin Gaye sang it (and made it famous). Leaders everywhere deal with it – and worry about it all too often. If you know the song, hum along as we talk about how leaders can work with the grapevine and make gossip less daunting and scary. The subtitle gives you

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It isn’t always easy to hold two seemingly conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time.  I believe this is why too often too many people live in a But World.  When they mention two different ideas or opinions to link them together with ” but” which linguistically implies and telegraphs that the latter one

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What images, thoughts and feelings come to mind when you think of or hear the word “salesperson”? Stereotypical, slick-talking, used car sales people Well-spoken financial manager The guy everyone loves who sells his wares on the golf course Whether you have positive thoughts and feelings about salespeople or decidedly un-positive, the purpose of this article

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I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a couple of days.  It seems that everytime I turn around this message comes to me in a new way.  The last straw was last night, when my soon-t0-be-twelve year old daughter hit the nail on the head. The messages is in this video . . .

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A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with Kim Watson, one of our interns last summer, who retruned to help with a couple projects in her spare time this summer.  She was talking about experiences from her first year in Law School ath the University of Illinois.  After our conversation, I asked her

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