Years ago, when I was the general manager at a tech company — managing my first, real team — I was doing the annual performance review with one of the…
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Why you focus on things that aren’t important
“Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10,” I asked my client, “with 10 being most important, what would you rate this issue?” We were going in circles as he…
The gift and curse of a racing mind
“What’s your #1 challenge/priority/goal right now?” It’s a question I typically pose to clients and I’m really just looking for a short, two or three sentence answer. Except, more often…
Success is boring
“I’m working as hard as I can, but I always feel behind.” I hear this a lot from my clients. Maybe you relate. Invariably, when I dig into what they’re actually working on,…
Is your team driving you crazy?
Do they spend more time arguing instead of focusing on the mission — or being passive aggressive? (Like the company where team members would simply ignore someone when they were…
Why you’re not improving faster
Eric Ries, who wrote The Lean Start Up, says “The only way to win is to learn faster than everyone else.” And yet, most people extract less than 5% of the learning…
Signs that s*#t is rolling uphill too quickly
Bruce Lee said, “The successful warrior is the average man, but with laser-like focus.” He should have added: laser-like focus on what’s important. Because, you know what’s most important, don’t you — what…
Uh, boss, I blew the roof off the building
Last week, I did a one-day leadership training at a Fintech start up. The team is impressive — a mix of veteran expertise and youthful energy — and they’ve just secured another round…
Are you fooling yourself?
Last weekend, I was up at the RDAC SEAL training program where we take candidates through a rigorous nine-hour workout with all the components of “Hell Week” — obstacle course,…
How to get people to do more of what you want
I started studying piano at the age of five. Since then, I’ve taken hundreds of lessons, performed in dozens of master classes and gotten feedback from all kinds of teachers.There’s…