Mentoring moments
If you have or have been a teenager, you know to seize that moment when someone is curious and camp there. “Hey Mom, can I ask you a question?”, “Hey boss, why do we do it this way?” Stop, look and listen! A brief window just opened. Drop everything and pay attention. If you are […]
The EQ triangle
We had the pleasure last week of Vistage Speaker Heather Anderson’s Master Class on Emotional Intelligence. If you have not done a deep dive into Emotional Intelligence, it is highly recommended. It gives you a vocabulary to express feelings or intuition you have about yourself and others. It gives you words to express frustration and […]
Flag Day in the USA
This has been quite a week in the City of the Angels! Businesses all over the southland have been invaded by ICE. Retail, factories, swap meets, Home Depot locations, construction sites, restaurants, hotels, schools. The strawberry fields are not being picked. Caregivers and gardeners have been picked up. Whole communities are sheltered in place. Green […]
passion + perseverance=GRIT
Do you believe in the mission of your organization? Do your people believe in the mission? It turns out that mission driven organizations can move faster to achieve their goals because the team is aligned. They are focused on where they want to go. They have passion. Perseverance is getting up every day and doing […]
White smoke
On Thursday, day two of the papal conclave, white smoke arose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. A new pope had been chosen. If you know little about Catholicism, the traditions around choosing a new pope may seem highly mysterious, but this was exciting for Catholics around the world. Agreement so soon bodes well for […]
VUCA it is!
VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It’s a framework used to describe situations that are unpredictable and rapidly changing. Well, doesn’t that sound like the times we are living in! It is how Musk ran his companies and how our federal government is being run today. The volatility and uncertainty is […]
The quality question
If you want to get better results, you may think you need to get better answers. Let’s go a little deeper here. Suppose that the question asked is the question answered. If you ask the “wrong” question, you get the “wrong” answer. So, improve the quality of your questions and you will get answers that […]
Los Angeles – we will rise!
The helicopters are still circling. The winds are coming back. The fires are not out. Houses are gone. People are still evacuated. The houses that remain are smoke damaged. No one is going back in until the toxic remains are removed….AND YET…. we will rise! Los Angeles – we will rise! Together, we will rebuild […]
Don’t waste your energy on what you can’t control
This week, I have spent many hours talking Members through their disappointment and fears around the outcome of the election. Higher tariffs, anti-immigrant policies, hateful and divisive language threaten their business success and members of their families and their communities. I find wise counsel once again in the leadership principles outlined by Stephen Covey in the […]
Sensemaking is a leadership skill
In a Vistage webinar on Friday, Dave Nelson commented that in the list of required leadership skills for successful leaders, perhaps the most important one in this moment, beyond, vision, drive, effective decisionmaking, ability to attract and retain top talent, etc. was sensemaking. His talk was about AI, but this captured my attention immediately. What […]