[Life Back West] December 2009 – The Darkest Days

In earlier times, people in the northern hemisphere marked the winter solstice – the time of the year when daylight for the hemisphere is at its shortest – with rites and rituals. Even today those traditions live on with things like the California Revels and their event productions held in Oakland.

This time of year was regarded as marking the sun‘s ebbing presence in the sky, and the deepest moment of the cold winter’s dark.Read the rest

[Dept. of Bad Advice] How You Can Interview Well. . .

. . . and Disregard Dan and Chip Heath’s How-to-Interview Recommendations


I think Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath is a really good book. Most of the Heath brother’s content is great, both in their book, as well as in their monthly column for Fast Company. But even Babe Ruth stuck out, and their interviewing advice in Fast Company  – Hold the Interview: Why it may be wiser to hire people without meeting them – is a real stinker.Read the rest

[Coaching Tips] “This Never Happens to Me”

Good business coaches use of host of tools and skills working with executives and teams: how they use those tools, and the robustness and effectiveness of the tools themselves is what separates coaches that are great and highly effective from those that are ho-hum and well, pretty ordinary.

One of those skills is the ability to see patterns of behavior where most might miss the connection between the dots, and to be able to use that insight to inform a host of suggested alternative approaches with a client.Read the rest

[Best Advice I Ever Got] “Good Execution Beats a Bad Idea”

Fortune Magazine’s November 23, 2009 issue features Willbur Ross in the “Best Advice I Ever Got” section. It’s well worth the quick read. My favorite line: “The biggest risk is the question you forgot to ask because the danger is always something you don’t know.

Ross speaks to two blind spots possessed by many organizations and their leaders – even mine as a solo practitioner consulting firm.… Read the rest