“Training is something you do to animals, education is something you do for people.” ~ Joe Contrera Transactions & Exchanges When you go through the drive thru at McDonald’s, there’s a good chance you’re not going for a culinary experience. Going through the drive-thru there is a process that happens about 35 million times…
“We all have blind-spots, but if we are willing to open our ears to feedback and our eyes to how others react to us, we can improve our impact as leaders ten-fold” ~Joe Contrera People always ask me, “What can I do to increase my impact as a leader?” That said, everyone has a…
“All creation is a mine, and every man is a miner.” ~ Abraham Lincoln A while back, I was working with a group of leaders from a gold mining company to help them strengthen their Coaching Skills. Towards the end of the week I had an opportunity to tour the mine. My guide Jesse…
“There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.” ~Steven Wright When it comes to fishing, a lot of fishermen use a leader (an additional section of wire or line) to quickly connect or replace the hook or the lure to the fishing line. The type of leader…
Resentment is like swallowing a poisonous pill and waiting for the other guy to die!” ~ St. Augustine In the world of business and finance, when we refer to the phrase poisonous pill, we are referring to a strategy to fight an unwanted takeover. The purpose is to protect the company from being taken…
“It sure did kick up some excitement in the Senate when one Senator called the other Senators ‘sons of Wild jackasses.’ Well, if you thought it made the Senators hot, you wait till you see what happens when the jackasses hear how they have been slandered.” ~Will Rogers I think it is fair to say…
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” ~ Isaac Asimov We all see the world through our lenses of perception. Every one of us experiences the world differently because our lenses are shaped by a number of variables: the beliefs…
Are You Taking Things Personally? In his ground-breaking book, The Four Agreements, author Don Miguel Ruiz wrote that taking things personally along with making assumptions was the equivalent of “a personal hell on earth!” As a leader taking things personally is a path to creating a personal hell for everyone in the office…including yourself! Why?…
“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” ~ Margaret J. Wheatley The Law of Unintended Consequences A short time ago I was working with a team of senior leaders. We were discussing the overall purpose of the organization and the bottom-line goal that was driving…
The cost of continuing to engage a disengaged leader is staggering! Over the course of the last 20 years so much emphasis has been placed on the impact that disengaged employees have on the bottom line. And while technically, a leader is an employee, the cost of disengaged leader can be ten times the cost…