I’ve been reading and rereading Difficult Conversations by Stone, Patton and Heen. I find it particularly useful because it identifies the thing that has always baffled me about “those” conversations: they’re not about facts and logic. Even though we spend inordinate amounts of teeth-grinding time on “But you said…” and “I don’t remember [...]

Swine flu? Learn to work from home

Don’t travel. Don’t get close to people. Stay away from large gatherings.
Whatever this becomes, the effect on the our workplaces and way of working will be severe. If you have children and / or are a knowledge worker, spending your time talking, thinking and working on a computer you must get prepared to work from [...]

20-30 Years Old and Suddenly Sitting at the Boss’s Desk

I was recently interviewed for an article in the Wall Street Journal for the column You at the Boss’s Desk. Here’s the article: 
I wanted to expand on the topic a bit. For people in their 20’s and 30’s a sudden promotion to a management position can have its joys and challenges. Of [...]

What if…

Perspective flip: think of people you avoid; now imagine they are fundamental to you in some way. What would you do differently with them?
What if the boss you gossip about at lunch and make fun of had some secret knowledge that could help you get the thing you desire the most?
What if the young, shy [...]

Quitting to succeed

Seth Godin, author of Tribes and Small is the New Big, has another book out – The Dip.
An important and audacious premise of The Dip is that quitting is sometimes the very best action to take to get what we want. Godin says, “we fail when we get distracted by tasks we don’t have the [...]

10 things businesspeople can do to adapt in the new economy

It’s rough out there.  Customers have lost their discretionary income.  Some have no income at all.  If you do business to business  then you know budgets have been severely cut back.  It seems like nobody’s buying.  So what do you do while things are slow.
10.  This economic situation is temporary and if you can wait [...]

Resilience thinking and adapting exercise in the dark months

There are a couple of ways to look at what I did this morning.
One is that I started exercising.
Another is that I resumed exercising.
I’ve been reading a lot about resilience and reflecting on how it helps people adapt.  One way to test your resilience is through your view of  yourself, “Am I a ‘me, always, [...]

Group selection and coaching for adaptability

For background: http://www.scq.ubc.ca/the-controversy-of-group-selection-theory/
There is a scientific theory in evolutionary biology called Multilevel Selection Theory, or Group Selection Theory.  The short version is that Darwin wrote about only one part of evolution – the evolutionary success of adaptive, fit individuals.  However, some groups survive even if the individuals in them are not the fittest in the [...]

Millennial Leaders: Will they survive?

Margaret Wheatley (http://www.margaretwheatley.com/) has said
“I strongly believe that the old leadership paradigm has failed us and that our current systems will continue to unravel.  This has changed what I do and whom I choose to support.  I no longer spend any time trying to fix or repair the old or to improve old leadership methods.  [...]

How coaching can fill the gap left by retiring Boomer managers

Though the economy is stalling many retirement plans, there are still a whole lot of empty management holes being left behind retiring boomers.  
As experienced managers retire, companies face the challenge not just of replacing them, but of bringing their replacements up to speed efficiently and effectively.  In many cases, Boomer’s replacements, often Millennials (people [...]