Humble

Being humble is a great way to go about tackling a new challenge. Humble keeps you grounded (the word actually comes from latin humus, that means earth), and it frees you from the need of having all the answers. When you are humble, you have time to explore, to audit, to find out, and eventually … Continue reading Humble →

Tough job

Two things about leadership I got reminded about in the past week. First, if you want to start a conversation on a challenging problem, do not put your idea forward. Not in the beginning, not in the middle, not at the end. Sit down and listen instead, and see if some elements of your idea … Continue reading Tough job →

Fear

Fear means you care. Fear means you will think twice. Fear means long-term matters to you. Fear means you are learning. Fear means you are not alone. Fear is good, and when you accept it in your life, name it, verbalize it, it is a lot less scary than you think.

Quarreling

Why are you so involved in this quarrel? It is an honest question to ask yourself, particularly when things stall and no progress is made towards a resolution. More often than not, we discuss to feed our ego. Of course, we believe our perspective is the right one (the people we are discussing with do … Continue reading Quarreling →

All the difference

Discussing a plan, an idea, a project, a strategy with somebody who's on a different agenda is challenging. To push it through, you might be tempted to do one or more of the following. Make it about the lack of alternatives - i.e. if we don't do this, we will do nothing. Make it about … Continue reading All the difference →

Do better

Asking others to do better, to be better is missing perspective. A more productive approach would be enquiring about what you can do to enable them to do better, to be better. And follow up with what is needed. An even more productive approach would be to figure out how you can do better, be … Continue reading Do better →