When my book Remarkable Leadership was published people asked me about the cover. Why acorns they asked? (actually by then 8 year old daughter Kelsey was the first to ask). My answer was two fold. Leaders are in the growth business, as are acorns.  After all, even the tallest, strongest and oldest oak trees on the planet started

Read More

Measurement. It’s something that we all know is important for anyone who is managing a team or business.  And while we have all heard, and likely repeated “What gets measured gets done,” sometimes, when we get past the basic things we must measure like the financials, and perhaps some safety numbers, we fall short in

Read More

Commercial flights are (increasingly) full, they are loud – both the ambient noise of the plane and the people on them, they are stuffy, you can’t get any food for free. I could go on (and you likely are in your head anyway, so there is no need for me to). If all of this

Read More

While you might not think of Cher as a deep philosophical thinker, I’ll make two comments before I share her brilliant insight. – we can learn from anyone – and the mark of a lifelong learner is having that belief. – we can definitely learn from people who have achieved significant things, even if their achievements

Read More

Organizational culture gets talked about a lot by people discussing success in organizations. It is rightly considered an important determining factor in measurements including retention, job satisfaction, trust levels, productivity and much more. Yet there are some common misconceptions about where culture comes from and who is responsible for it. Because of these misconceptions too

Read More

While I am a social media user and I am probably more active in using social media for business purposes than the general population, I’m not a social media expert, and I don’t know if this tool will replace Facebook or diminish the value of LinkedIn. I’ll leave that for someone else. My purposes for

Read More

A positive mental attitude or just “being positive” is often cited as an important attribute of successful leaders and people. Here’s what a famous achiever, who overcame more than you or I will ever fathom had to say about it: “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land,

Read More

Have you ever felt like you were treading water, or maybe just floating?  You are active, maybe even busy, and you are likely meeting all of your commitments, but you aren’t making any progress, not making any new progress.  Several years ago my sister-in-law Kara stated this as being in maintenance mode.  The description seemed

Read More

Leaders lead others, usually in groups or teams. So, any conversation about effective leadership can’t go too far without discussing how leaders help their teams. People have spent their lives studying the dynamics of teams. These studies include team interactions, how teams form and develop, and the skills needed for team members to be successful. So,

Read More