How Leaders Build a Culture People Can Actually Live

Culture is easy to talk about and much harder to live. Most organizations have values. They put them on websites, office walls, employee handbooks, onboarding documents, and leadership retreat slides. Some lists are thoughtful. Some are inspiring. Some sound like...

How Leaders Turn Problems Into Opportunities

Every leader deals with problems. Projects stall. Communication breaks down. Good people miss expectations. Customers get frustrated. Teams lose momentum. Processes that worked last year start creating confusion this year. The strongest leaders do something useful...

When Good Intentions Break Down Communication

Most leaders are surprised to know that the majority of communication problems do not come from bad intentions or deliberately negative actions. Much more often, they come from the ways we try to help. Someone brings us a problem, and we engage quickly. We want to be...

Solving the Right Problem

Leaders are expected to respond quickly. When something goes wrong, the pressure is to act, correct, and move forward. Speed and decisiveness often feel like competent leadership. However, the risk is that fast responses often come before full understanding. This...

The Discipline of Leading Without Labels

Leadership requires constant interpretation of people. In order to move quickly and make sound decisions, leaders naturally categorize behavior. Our brains are very good at recognizing patterns and categorizing those behaviors. A problem arises, though, when we begin...