Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
There are jobs that last a lifetime, and jobs that are over before they really start. In between is the job that has a predictable arc with a start and a finish; you just need to know when it’s time to move on.
And in the C suite, where fortunes might be made, and juggling competing egos and agendas can be a full day’s work all in itself, the risks and rewards of figuring this timing stuff out is even greater.… Read the rest
Sometimes the job you’ve been promised won’t be there; sometimes the job you think you’ve lost may return.
So how do you know if it’s a sure thing?
You won’t.
Learn why the “sure thing” today is likely the maybe thing tomorrow, and what you can do to make yourself better prepared when that sure-thing-to-make-or-nothing happens.
Why is the sure thing is not exactly the sure thing?… Read the rest
Being a CEO of a public company used the be the ultimate role for anyone in business. So when did it become so undesirable – and just a stepping stone to a better things down the road?
Jobs and roles in companies go through cycles. ABC’s Pan Am shows us that being an airline stewardess was the hot job to land for working women in the 1960’s (boy, does that concept seem dated) and NBC’s The Office vilifies most roles, unless you’re the boss, in organizations today for the unpleasantness you have to tolerate to survive.… Read the rest
Sports are an imperfect analogue.
But like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, analogues and metaphors provide representations that if properly understood can give us insight to the real world – not simply shadows on the cave wall.
So what does this have to do with the most American (as in the United States and Canada – not the rest of the countries in the Americas) of sports, baseball?… Read the rest
The myth is that startups mostly exist in places like San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Austin, Portland and Boulder, Boston or New York City.
That part is no myth; startups up do exist in those places.
But there is another startup in the town where you live. In fact, it’s even got your name on the door.
It’s the startup called you.… Read the rest
The request came from a client whose leadership team I had worked with this June; the team had a consultant come in earlier and diagnosed them as dysfunctional. What to do about that dysfunction? That wasn’t part of the program.
The work the team had done with me followed the Road Trip model, and predictably some things had popped up in terms of prime improvement opportunity areas.… Read the rest