Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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How to Scale Leadership Across an Organization
To truly scale leadership, design a program that doesn’t allow leaders to talk at each other. Ever. Instead, create an uninterrupted conversation that invites vibrant debate and discussion about how to lead. Leave the abstract ideas, frameworks, and theories for those executive education classes at universities that are more geared toward passive learning. To scale…
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Fail Small, Fail Early
Despite the contemporary view that leaders learn more from failure than from success, no one tries to make a habit of failing. Failing is painful and can have significant consequences for future opportunities and decisions. Once confronted with a failure, good leaders do their best to make the best of the insights and learnings that…
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Ground Rules That Promote Open Discussion
Creating open and candid discussion is never easy, especially in large groups. People feel inhibited for a host of reasons, including the fear that what they say may be used against them in the future. That’s why many leaders establish discussion ground rules that work to encourage a more open and honest exchange of ideas. …
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How Organization and Team Cultures Are Defined by Status
Leaders who desire to create a more positive and receptive culture would do well to examine how status gets expressed throughout the organization. The smallest acts are often imbued with implied status, including who makes and controls everyday decisions. Unchecked, status can become an invisible force for darkness inside the workplace. But when pushed down…
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The Benefits of Two-in-a-Box Leadership
Shared leadership will continue to be an attractive choice in the right settings and organizations. We have long been taught that two heads are better than one. This is only true if together the two are smarter, not just more self-important, than one.
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Challenging a Strong First Impression
Leaders are generally quite good at taking limited amounts of information and making reasonable inferences. The first impressions leaders have of others, usually coming in just the first few minutes of contact, are often highly accurate. In fact, most leaders will tell you they surprise even themselves with their clairvoyance regarding first impressions. This encourages…
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The Spark of Being True to Yourself
Dave Chappelle is considered one of the greatest comedians of our time. He is known for his seemingly effortless and spontaneous stand-up performances where he connects with audiences in an intimate and authentic way. But it hasn’t always been easy for Chappelle. In fact, in 2005, at the height of his stardom, he lost his way. Chappelle…
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Restraining the Optimism That Leads to the Planning Fallacy
Why does it seem that projects always take longer than we anticipate? Because they typically do. Leaders generally underestimate the time it will take to complete any complex task. They fail to account for the challenges and obstacles inherent in completing large or elaborate projects, preferring instead to remain optimistic about what could be achieved…
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Creating More Emphasis Vocally
The way in which a leader communicates orally in professional settings carries a lot of meaning. Tone, pitch, grammar, and vocabulary combine to establish credibility and to project confidence. The elusive quality of executive presence is, in part, a reflection of vocal style and choices. Minor variations in pitch can have a dramatic effect on…
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The LEGO Critical to Your Organization’s Success
Combining a single solar cell with many other cells is how a solar panel is made. Add many solar panels together, and a solar array soon exists. Many solar arrays become a solar farm, producing a tremendous amount of clean energy. That’s the power of modularity. But it all starts with the single solar cell.…