Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
She has been dead for over a decade and I still remember the first time we met as if it was yesterday.
Over 70, she summoned me from across Liberty Street with a wave of her hand as I wondered what a stranger was doing motioning to me. Newly moved from Chicago, it was definitely not something that would happen in the Windy City unless the person was psychotic.… Read the rest
Gary Allan Hertzberg, the American musician known professionally as Gary Allan, has a song line of “Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip.“
For the “naughty or nice” standard, it’s a pretty good way to gauge behavior, and one for all of us (you too) to follow.
Exemplary behavior in one person – think Nelson Mandela – is rare.… Read the rest
“Kismet” the CEO asked?
“Yes, kismet,” I said. “The not-so-accidental fact that I’m working with someone who has some of the same strengths and challenges that I have. The good news? I know them well.”
The CEO’s direct report was the client, someone I’ll call “Bob,” did indeed have a skill set that reminded me of me; hardworking, a nose for the business, great rapport with people below him on the corporate pecking order, broad interests and knowledge, smart (well, maybe not that part) and the ability to be too candid when greater diplomacy was in retrospect warranted.… Read the rest
“Did you lose your voice?”
It was the first question my exec coaching client asked himself as the chairman went around the room polling everyone’s thoughts.
“Worse,” my client said, “I knew it was a really bad idea and everyone else knew it too.”
Research by social scientists documents the dangers of groupthink; an opinion gets started, a couple of people agree, and pretty soon you have a tidal wave of sentiment pushing in one direction.… Read the rest
Three posts worth your reading / watching time:
Dan Pink’s new book To Sell is Human has terrific great research on getting your ideas across. Here’s a link to a short video of his 6 Successors to the Elevator Pitch.
Former McKinsey consultant Andrew Sobel’s sweet spot is client relationships. Here’s a recent post titled 6 Essential Roles You Should Play with Clients that frames the key roles you should be thinking about if you work with clients.… Read the rest
A guy I met at a client firm’s baseball outing had a singular statement:
“Silicon Valley software engineers rule the world!“
Do they?
His take was based on some simple facts: the world is run on software, the best of the best software engineers are in Silicon Valley, firms can never find enough good engineers to do work that is indispensable, the jobs pay well to do fun stuff so Silicon Valley engineers must rule the world.… Read the rest