Monthly Archives: December 2009

I suspect the right brainers out there are now singing to themselves “You saw me standing alone” while the left brainers are reflecting on the fact that this is the first time in 19 years we’ve had a Blue Moon on New Years Eve. (more…)

“ ‘Our employees our are best assets.’ What do we do with assets? We use them. We buy and sell them. We depreciate them.” – Dennis Bakke, Joy At Work

If you want to learn a lot about an organization, listen to their words. Words are often a hidden tunnel into the soul of corporate belief. What words permeate your office?
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About 10 years ago I realized that I was reading a lot of greatly informative books but not retaining all that I wanted. In an effort to help retain more and build it as part of my everyday life I decided I needed to develop a system.

Unfortunately all of the systems that were developed assumed you were sitting at a desk taking notes. This was rarely the case. More often than not I was in the gym on the elliptical trainer or lying in bed reading. Taking notes at that time was not practical.
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I have to admit that one of my greatest rewards is totally egocentric. I smile big time when I see something I taught years ago come back to me as a demonstrated behavior from one of my protégés. I would love to believe that it is just the pure, unadulterated joy that comes from seeing someone else grow but if I am being totally honest, it’s not. (more…)

“If you are one step ahead of the followers you are a leader. Ten steps ahead and you’re a martyr.” – John Maxwell

I’ve never been a big fan of martyrdom as it usually ended in death or at least very painful suffering. Very few of us as leaders wish to die for our teams yet I have often seen leaders do just that by not staying within a heartbeat’s reach of their followers.

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I have found that if you want to change an organization, do not dismiss the importance of a shared vocabulary. These purposeful words can often turn out to be very simple ways to express complex concepts – concepts that represent a common understanding developed among the members of a team. Let me give an example.
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