Stress has become a buzzword, but most of us don’t really know what it is. According to my friend Dr. Heidi Hanna, the word itself can cause stress just because it’s difficult to define. We use it as a catchall for anything that feels off in our lives, and by dumping problems into a bucket… Continue Reading Make Stress Your Friend
READ MOREOrganizations confront opportunities to change on a regular basis. Whether it is an update to a long-held policy or procedure, an improvement in how leaders provide feedback to others or an increase on the part of managers to speak truth to power, one retort is heard more often than any other. This most common theme… Continue Reading Culture is an Outcome
READ MOREThere is a term floating around these days called FOMO. FOMO is the Fear of Missing Out. It is a fear that persistently and perniciously interferes with our attempts to bring dedicated focus to our tasks and to our relationships. Think about the last time you checked your phone to see if you had any… Continue Reading The Fear of Missing Out
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 2017, I’m happy to share my favorite reads for the year. American Icon by Bryce Hoffman Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing by W.… Continue Reading My Favorite Reads in 2017
READ MOREIs it possible that the words we use prevent us from seeing the world and the people in it as they really are? Our words directly shape how we see the world and how we engage with others. Benjamin Lee Whorf, a linguist, suggests that “by altering our use of language, we also revise how… Continue Reading "To Be" or Not "To Be"
READ MOREIn our interactions with others, it is all too common to get frustrated with what people aren’t. Rather than celebrating and leveraging the strengths of those we work with, we can easily end up communicating an expectation that everyone must be good at everything. Have you ever tried putting a saddle on a duck? How… Continue Reading Putting a Saddle on a Duck
READ MOREInnovation is serious business, and yet sometimes we are just too serious about innovation. Throughout history, we can see that play actually has served as a reliable gateway to innovation. In Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson illustrates how playfulness has fueled a remarkable amount of innovation and new discovery. Consider Charles Babbage,… Continue Reading Play Your Way to Innovation
READ MOREIn a recent New York Times article, Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of people operations at Google, reveals what some might refer to as surprising. After synthesizing 10,000 data points including performance reviews done on managers, employee engagement surveys and even nomination forms for top-manager awards, the Google analysts found that technical expertise paled… Continue Reading Building Better Leaders
READ MOREHow 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… Continue Reading The 7 Fires of the Day
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… Continue Reading Effort Counts Twice
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