Leadership = focus on accomplishing the goal, not advocating for your way to the goal

Leadership Isn't About Your Ideas, It's About Goals

At the end of the day (terrible business buzzword concept, and I’m sorry I opened this post that way), isn’t the goal of a leader to accomplish a specific goal, or specific set of goals? You have deliverables, and you… Continue Reading

Why do meetings necessarily need to be about a specific topic?

Corporate Athletes and Meetings

I’m going to make an argument here (and probably do so poorly), and the argument is going to be a little bit hard to follow (I think). Bear with me. I think there might be something here. (Generalization to start)… Continue Reading

Dichotomy: Women have tons of decision-making power at the family level, almost none at the business level

Glass Ceiling Makes No Sense

Here’s The New York Times being “goofy” and comparing the number of companies run by guys named John (just the name John) to the number of companies run by women at all. It’s maybe a little bit awkward at parts, but… Continue Reading

Start thinking about “connectional intelligence”

Connectional Intelligence

Basically, networking sucks — to the point that often the best advice to “network better” is actually to “stop networking.” There are a myriad of reasons for that, not the least of which is networking feels like a game that can… Continue Reading

Move from “storytelling” to “story-making” in your branding and marketing

Storytelling vs. Story-Making

Goes something like this, I think: Old idea: Everything comes back to storytelling; that’s what the brain resonates around. If you’re in marketing, that’s what you should do. That’s essentially the keynote of most every marketing conference since 2009, and… Continue Reading

“Loyalty company” and “company with loyalty program” = different

Customer Loyalty vs. Loyalty Company

This about sums it up. Here’s a story from a couple of years ago: when my wife and I were dating, we drove up the Mississippi from Jacksonville to Minneapolis. Ironically, two years after that trip, we ended up living… Continue Reading

We should let adults embrace the idea of “play.”

Adults need to play as well

Maturity and professionalism are a thing, yes, but … if we let people “play” at work, we could achieve so much. Continue Reading

How “the latitude of acceptance” explains change at work

Latitude of Acceptance

Here’s how to conceptualize the idea of a “latitude of acceptance.” Take any idea that has two distinct sides. There’s a cluster of people all the way at one end (“Abortion is terrible!”), then a cluster of people all the way… Continue Reading