Leadership means asking questions. What is the problem? What can we do that is new and better? How do we tackle this issue? What if we do something else? How can I help you? If your days, your meetings, your interactions are filled with answers, you are doing something else entirely. Take Gary Kaplan, who … Continue reading Questions and answers
Sit or stand
In the face of adversity, we can sit down and complain, or stand up and do something. A couple of things. Sitting down and complaining makes us complicit in the adversity. If it was not our fault to begin with, it is after we make the decision to merely sit there. It does not matter … Continue reading Sit or stand
Disappointment
Disappointment is about anticipated rewards. Sometimes the anticipated rewards are the result of our ambitions, aspirations, dreams, desires, experiences. We are active part in building up our expectations, to the point that it often becomes impossible for the actual thing to satisfy them. Sometimes they are set by others with their ads, content, hype-building tactics, … Continue reading Disappointment
Bridge
When one gets squeezed between two opposing forces, it is quite usual to start depicting both forces as enemies. Lousy middle management is a great representation of this. Middle managers are at the crossroads of contrasting needs and ambitions, and the result can easily get to "management has unreasonable expectations" and "my team is lazy … Continue reading Bridge
Extend your hand
When there is tension, when you feel those that are not on your side are simply too far away, when talking is arguing, when it seems impossible to find common ground. Extend your hand. https://youtu.be/zVSuooQORTU
A small step
When you talk about change, you might get a lot of resistance or a lot of cheering. Most likely, a mix of the two. In both cases though, you are not one step closer to the change you are seeking. And that is because telling about change is only one small step on a highway … Continue reading A small step
Feelings and stories
If it feels like you are stuck in life, try expanding the time frame. You might be the same as one month ago, or one year ago, but what about three years, five years, ten years ago? And should that not work, try changing the stick you use to measure. You might have been in … Continue reading Feelings and stories
Weakness
Weaknesses have the tendency to creep up on strengths, until they obfuscate them and leave them behind. We give way more importance to what we are not good at, we often set goals to fill gaps we might have, we end up setting ourselves up for failure. And by doing so, we drift farther away … Continue reading Weakness
Building relationships
The way you communicate reality is often more important than reality itself in building bonds. Or breaking them. Say you have to share a decision with your team, one that is not fully fair, one you were not involved in making, one that will not make them happy. You can state the fact, and say … Continue reading Building relationships
Your game
You choose the rules of your game. You choose where to start from, what is allowed and what not, what winning looks like, and which other players are in the same game. This is not an easy task, and that is the reason why many of us play someone else's game. It is not an … Continue reading Your game
