Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
If you live in a certain City by the bay, sooner or later little surprises you.
Annoy you? Yes. Delight you? Often. Alarm, disappoint, thrill, and endear? Always.
It’s those differences that make the place so special. Take away those difference and ultimately it leads to one destination; the land of boring, common, even mediocre.
Some workplaces are just like that City.… Read the rest
Bud Tunt, one smart exec with whom I worked at Fortune 15 McKesson, told me that the savviest thing you could do in business was to take away all the excuses.
Bud was on so something.
There are three camps; people who care and support you or your ideas, people who care and have criticism about you or your ideas, and people who don’t care or support you and sit on their hands.… Read the rest
We all have many “parts” that sit within our one self; father, daughter, employee, leader, neighbor, worker, religious believer and maybe even a baseball fan. You get the idea.
Here’s another idea; what if you brought them all together in whatever you did – like your day job? One unified whole, not just a part you pull out of some trunk when you needed it and then tucked it back away after use.… Read the rest
There is no place like home. And when you want a break, sometimes there is no place like home alone.
Even with just my spouse, our engaging 9-year old son and one spunky canine pup at home, it can be a relief to have two out of the first three leave town so you have a break for yourself. When the ask – “Do you mind if we run up to Sugar Bowl for the last weekend of skiing?”… Read the rest
Trailblazer, aviator and stereotype breaker Amelia Earhart once said “When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.”
Amelia, however, wasn’t helping raise a son. She also hadn’t just rebuilt a coaching practice working with individuals and teams back to pre-Great Recession levels.
Taking a risk for her, covering a gamble, was perhaps easier, with less downside to go along with any upside.… Read the rest
We all love comebacks.
Those of us who are San Franciscans really love it when it involves our much beloved US professional football team, the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers are in the championship hunt this year after a long hiatus, playing for their first conference championship – a step before the Super Bowl and league championship – since 1998 against the New York Giants this upcoming Sunday.… Read the rest