Balloon flight, shot with an HD HERO camera from GoPro. from Francois Brahic on Vimeo. I saw this video yesterday and I couldn’t quite get it out of my mind.  Not because I was fascinated by the technology, thought it is pretty cool.  My fascination, as it often does, turned to the leadership lessons “hidden”

“When are you going to learn?” If you are like me this question could be a echo of something you heard from your parents, who asked it with some justified degree of frustration, probably wondering when you were going to figure something out. (After you have messed something up several times!) “When are you going

This week’s Resource Recommendation:  The Why of Work by Dave and Wendy Ulrich. Human beings need meaning to be happiest and most productive. And while this has been known individually and collectively for a long time, leaders often struggle trying to help people – and entire organizations – capture, create or find meaning in their

In a recent leadership workshop a participant asked me: “How can I encourage my staff to take initiative and think outside the box? I suppose one reason I saved answering the question until now (in this forum) is that it’s a multi-part question. There are three parts really – the encourage part, initiative part, and

Many people I know have a short stack of books to read, always sitting there at the ready. Well, I have a big stack – and it grows every day. Understand, I’m not complaining. I feel a sense of abundance when I have books around me, and along with a healthy admiration of Amazon and

In a recent leadership workshop a participant asked me: “How can I get staff to think about choices or decisions and not just react?” My first thought was of a classic Zig Ziglar story that talks about the big difference one word can make. Zig said (and I’m paraphrasing): Imagine going to the doctor for

For many years research has proven the correlation between vocabulary and success – both in school and long beyond. (Here’s a long list of research if you’re interested in the background.) The studies talk about improved communication skills, better job retention, faster promotions and higher lifetime earning potential. Do I have your attention yet? While

Just coming off a vacation gives me a good chance to think about work-life balance. As leaders and achievers it is a topic often discussed in workshops and in casual conversations. People are so busy and feel pulled in so many directions that they find this idea of work-life balance elusive. Let’s start with three