Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
There are three well-known West Coast asset management firms (financial services speak for mutual funds, venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, or fund of funds firms) – none of them clients – where the firm’s leadership team members barely tolerate each other.
They talk when they must. Otherwise they minimize their working relationships as much as possible.
The firms make money. … Read the rest
Sometimes the best (and hardest) lessons you learn are when you’re a child. They can also happen when you’re a parent of a child.
In both situations the best you hope for is that everyone comes out learning something from which they can grow. Your wish, in effect, is that it’s the silver lining that gets explored, not just the hard edges and rough lessons of the dark cloud that envelopes it.… Read the rest
John Baldoni recently blogged on the best way to handle your critics, using President Obama’s recent session with Republican Congress members as an example. Baldoni’s post at the Harvard Business Review – How to Face Your Critics – suggests the following steps:
Beyond facing your critics, a key foundational pillar for you to be a good manager and an even better leader is your ability to give and get great feedback.… Read the rest
Just as former basketball superstar Michael Jordan, investor Warren Buffett, or businessperson Oprah Winfrey wouldn’t handicap themselves by taking their second-string game to work (e.g. imagine Buffett: “No, we just invest in companies whose names begin with M-Z), you want to take your best self to work and life. It means bringing the whole you – not just a part of you – to life.… Read the rest
40 people – including me – who coach leaders and teams as I do, got to spend an evening with Jim Kouzes Tuesday night. It was food for the mind and food for the soul.
Kouzes, along with colleague Barry Posner, authored the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, which has over 1.8 million copies in print. The duo has also been active in doing field-based research, utilizing a leadership inventory they developed, which now has a database of over 1M respondents.… Read the rest