A few years ago, a friend of mine was telling me about her experience visiting a series of TV talk shows. I was curious about her experience, so I asked her a series of questions regarding the various hosts. What was most astonishing to me was the various hosts’ use of the audience. And while…
“When you don’t know your why, you don’t have purpose, when you don’t have purpose, you don’t have clarity, when you don’t have clarity you don’t have focus, and without focus you can’t accomplish a damn thing!” ~ Joe Contrera A lack of focus will make you highly ineffective as a leader. Sometimes a lack…
“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…
“Being fake is so common now that being real is seen as offensive.” ~ Chris Ruden Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade, you are increasingly being bombarded by faux people, making faux claims, in an attempt to come across as faux real! Whether it is a politician in Washington flat…
“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…
“This indecision’s buggin’ me, exactly whom I’m supposed to be, so you got to let me know, should I stay or should I go?” The Clash When it comes to making decisions, sometimes we can get bogged down in the in-decision. And the bigger the decision, the greater the in-decision can be! Maybe you’re…
No one ever said that being a leader was going to be easy. In fact, I believe that being an effective leader is one of the greatest challenges one can face in their lifetime. Why? Because it requires a fundamental shift in how you perceive your work and how you go about getting things done. As…
“Be a living expression of your values, wear them, speak them, make decisions aligned with them.” ~Anonymous Living Your Values or Are They Just Words? Knowing what you stand for and living your values is not always an easy thing to do. This is true for organizations as well as individuals. In fact, it seems…
“Creating choices empowers me…giving choices empowers others” ~ Joe Contrera A friend of mine once asked me a question when I was going through a pretty tough time in my life. They asked, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” Believe it or not, my initial response was, “I…