How many of us spend too much time, day in and day out, attending to the “7 fires of the day”? Many of my clients bemoan the fact that the big projects never seem to get the attention they require for meaningful accomplishment. Other newsletters and time-management gurus offer tons of advice, including: Don’t start…
READ MOREWhen it comes to predicting who will succeed in life and business, we often are “distracted by talent”. We tend to place way too much faith in SAT scores, GPAs and other measures of aptitude, even when these standard metrics have been shown to fail as guarantors of achievement. Whether it’s who will survive Beast…
READ MORERecently, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, published a letter to shareholders, in which he shared a number of lessons for those seeking to achieve organizational excellence. One piece of advice contained in the letter can best be distilled into three impactful words: “Disagree and commit.” Here’s what Jeff Bezos had to say about these…
READ MOREDuring the past couple of weeks, I found myself, for a second time, working my way through Thomas L. Friedman’s Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations. Friedman, also author of The World is Flat, uses his latest book to analyze the dizzying pace of change and…
READ MOREHow do you respond when you’re dissatisfied? Organizations today increasingly sponsor annual surveys to measure the level of employee engagement and satisfaction/dissatisfaction to better understand opportunities for improving culture and communication. Back in 1970, Albert Hirschman wrote a book called Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Many employee engagement…
READ MOREYou probably remember learning to ride your first bicycle when you were just a little kid. There were undoubtedly some fearful moments, and even some minor crashes, as you worked to balance yourself on two wheels. Before long, you mastered the art of bicycling and you never had to look back again. The adults around…
READ MOREAs a regular subscriber to The Fit Leader blog, you know that I am an avid reader, and often make references to books in my posts. As we near the end of 2016, I’m happy to share my favorite reads for the year. Create a World That Works: Tools for Personal and Global Transformation by…
READ MOREIn today’s VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), predicting the future can be difficult, if not impossible. Despite this complexity, many leaders prefer staying in familiar territory, assuming they already know what will work best. In fact, many of us choose the path that is most comfortable or confirming. Rather than bringing genuine curiosity…
READ MORELet’s start with a POP QUIZ: What’s 2,446,708 X 11,567 X 6.72 X 0? Pretty simple, huh? I bet you even came up with the correct answer without using a calculator. How about another mental challenge? This one comes from one of my favorite blogs (Farnam Street): Suppose you were trying to become the best…
READ MOREIn life, there are often situations where we want to do the right thing, and yet our choices seem directed in a way that produces unintended outcomes. Walking through a cafeteria line, we have good intentions to select healthy and nutritious foods, and yet when the desserts are placed at the front of the line,…
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