Blog

Is Kevin Durant the MVP of Vulnerability?

You don’t have to be a basketball fan to appreciate the beauty of the NBA basketball championships that ended Tuesday evening. First class athletes on both teams, playing the game at an almost unimaginable skill level was really human poetry in motion. As fans from both sides either celebrate (provided you’re…

Leadership Lessons from the Birth of the Bicycle

Two hundred years ago this week, Karl Freiherr von Drais, took the world’s first bicycle ride from Mannheim (Germany) to the Schwetzinger Inn, a distance of about five miles. Nevermind that Drais’s bicycle, called a Draisine, didn’t have pedals, (pedals weren’t developed for another fifty years); this mode of transportation was a…

Use Humor That Helps, Not Hurts Your Business

Laughter reduces stress, anxiety and pain. It’s a sign of intelligence and boosts our sense of well-being. Humor, applied appropriately, increases creativity, commitment and motivation on the job. Ultimately, it benefits business by raising key measures like productivity and innovation. With the case for humor apparently so clear, shouldn’t we make leading with…

Why Things Won’t Change Anytime Soon @ United

It’s been nearly six weeks since United Airlines suffered a serious setback to “fly the friendly skies”, with the forcible removed of Dr David Dao on flight 3411. For United executive leadership and stakeholders, it was a nightmare moment that can break even the best of companies. To be fair, CEO Oscar Munoz stepped up to the plate…

Tenzin from Tibet

It’s 4 a.m. in San Francisco. Unable to sleep after travelling and working through nine time zones in the past four days, I went down to the front desk to extend my hotel room for another day. The young, soft-spoken night manager handled my request. His English had a footprint…

SuperCharge Your Strategy

Most strategies fail. Very few leaders are successful at creating, implementing and executing their business strategies. Here are the facts: Only 10% of formulated strategy actually gets executed successfully 85% of management teams spend less than one hour a month on strategy issues Only 5% of employees understand their corporate…

Drive Your Strategy Like a Tesla

There’s no shortage of strategic thinkers in the world. With over 22,000 titles on strategy available on Amazon, nearly every business school offering something on strategic thinking, strategic management, or strategic leadership, you’d think that most companies are capable and satisfied with the way their leaders run and profit from their…

What Really Happens in Your Executive Meetings?

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. I can sit in and observe a senior leadership meeting and get a very clear picture of what’s going on in an organization. Does the meeting start on time? Has the agenda been circulated beforehand? Have the leader members…

Are Cancerous Behaviors Destroying Your Company’s Performance?

Cancer begins when the inner workings of one cell goes wrong. This leads to abnormal cell growth that then spreads to other cells. While cancer can be a deadly disease, early detection can dramatically improve your chances of survival. Sadly, when leaders struggle with poor performance in their organizations, they fail to use…

Is your story in the company strategy?

If you are like most senior executives, you aim to move the strategy you’ve developed into the ranks of your organization to stimulate change, create competitive advantage, and generate value for your customers. In theory it is straightforward, in practice most senior executives share that moving their strategy into the organization…