“I am not young enough to know everything.” – Oscar Wilde A few weeks ago I posted something about how important it is for leaders to be lifelong learners. An enthusiasm for learning is one of the surest predictors that you have a chance to be a successful leader. But it can’t just be you. … Read more
“Not being able to do everything is no excuse for not doing everything you can.” – Ashleigh Brilliant We live in a world where people seem to avoid taking responsibility for as many things as possible (maybe the world has always been that way). No matter what goes wrong in somebody’s life, they’ll come up … Read more
“It’s a bad plan that admits of no modification.” – Publilius Syrus One of the parts of my career I enjoy the most is helping organizations plan for their future. One of the parts that’s less enjoyable is listening to people complain about planning for their future. Leaders ask if we can help them with … Read more
“In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer Understandably, we all tend to be impressed by people who are successful. When it comes to leaders, we tend to look at those who’ve done really well and … Read more
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – C.G. Jung If I asked you to list capabilities that are critical for leaders to have here in the 21st century, what would you come up with? You might have something about technology, or continuous learning, or … Read more
“Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker One of the critical things leaders need to be thinking about in our current world is focus. We are constantly bombarded by change in our businesses, technology, people, customers, etc. Some days it’s hard to know where to look. There are … Read more
“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg One of the things I hear a lot of in my career is how hard people’s lives are. A “How are things going?” quite often draws … Read more
“Action expresses priorities.” – Mahatma Gandhi An all too common refrain from business owners when I ask them why they haven’t done or aren’t doing something that seems worth doing is “I’m just too busy”. Sometimes it’s “I just don’t have time” or “I haven’t had time to get to that” or something like that, … Read more
“It’s a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” – Helen Keller One of the things I hear leaders complain about on a regular basis is how hard it is to build commitment to change across an entire organization. Everybody has kick-off events, or gives fantastic sounding motivational talks, or some other great idea, … Read more
“I’m facing Niagara Falls – the wind and the mist and the dark and the peregrine falcons – and I’m going to stay focused on the other side.” – Nik Wallenda One of my areas of improvement for 2018 is focus. There are so many possibilities and so many ideas and so many challenges that … Read more
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