Leadership

Two Simple Practices to Improve Your Work Peace of Mind.

Is your monkey mind keeping you up at night? Frustrated about your relationship with a work colleague? Your pet project feels like it's going sideways? You're on a dysfunctional team? The company feels financially unstable? The list is endless, and when it's stuck in your head, it just grows longer.

Two Simple Practices to Improve Your Work Peace of Mind.

The Value of a Growth Mindset in Business.

When I started studying Carol Dweck's theory of growth mindset over a half-dozen years ago, I asked folks at the Growth Mindset podcast (https://bit.ly/48mGeVy) what companies or leaders most invest in a growth mindset. They said, "Microsoft. Their relatively new CEO Satya Nadella believes this could be their strategic competency."

The Value of a Growth Mindset in Business.

An All-American Fable: The Emperor Has No Clothes.

Hans Christian Anderson must be laughing in his Danish grave. He wrote the fairy tale about a vain emperor who is hoodwinked by a couple of grifting tailors who get him to spend a fortune on stylish clothes that are invisible to those who are uneducated. They’re also invisible to the emperor, but not wanting to look foolish, he convinces himself that his new wardrobe is divine and leads a procession through the city stark naked. The townsfolk try to go along with this pretense, not wanting to look stupid, until a child states the obvious: the emperor is wearing no clothes. The emperor shuts the kid up and proudly struts through town like a naked peacock. We are faced with this same predicament in America today: how to speak truth to power, especially when those closest to the powerful often have the most difficulty stating the obvious.

An All-American Fable: The Emperor Has No Clothes.

The World is Too Smart for its Own Good. It’s Time to Make it Wise.

Prioritize Return on Wisdom (ROW) over traditional knowledge. Learn from seasoned leadership, and collaborative learning. Essential for success in evolving markets.

The World is Too Smart for its Own Good. It’s Time to Make it Wise.

The World is Too Smart for its Own Good. It’s Time to Make it Wise.

You’re probably familiar with the acronym ROI, also known as Return on Investment (or Ripples of Impact in the MEA world).

The World is Too Smart for its Own Good. It’s Time to Make it Wise.

I Want to Be an “Angelic Troublemaker” When I Grow Up.

One of my modern-day heroes is Bayard Rustin, the African-American activist who was pivotal in a variety of mid-20th-century social movements for civil rights, economic empowerment, nonviolence, and gay rights. I'll never forget seeing the documentary of his life, "Brother Outsider," (https://bit.ly/3Np1xhC) at the Sundance Film Festival two dozen years ago. I don't know if I've ever been so inspired by one man's story. He used the term "angelic troublemaker" to describe the people he admires; of course, it's an apt description for himself.

I Want to Be an “Angelic Troublemaker” When I Grow Up.

Get Ready for the 100-Year-Old CEO.

How is it that Americans believe 81-year-old Joe Biden is too old to be President, yet 93-year-old Berkshire Hathaway founder and CEO Warren Buffett had to recently reassure investors that the day his named successor steps in is many years off? His right-hand man and vice chairman, Charlie Munger, still clocks in for duty at age 99.

Get Ready for the 100-Year-Old CEO.

The Gift of Role Modeling.

At the beginning of the holiday season, transitions seem particularly difficult. What we are exposed to and learn at MEA is how the “messy middle" is a challenge that we are often not prepared for.

The Gift of Role Modeling.

Elder Hunger.

“There lies the longing to know and be known by another fully and humanly, and that beneath that there lies a longing, closer to the heart of the matter still, which is the longing to be at long last where you fully belong.” — Frederick Buechner, “The Longing for Home”

Elder Hunger.

I Retired My “Invincibility Cloak.”

Chip recently asked in a blog, "How do you ask for help when you're embarrassed to do so?" It's been a week of reflection for me. For I too used to resist asking for help. That was my identity. I built a remarkable career with that trait. I was the "essential one" – key to winning the biggest-of-big pitches, a magnet for press interviews, the one who C-suite clients were drawn to.

I Retired My “Invincibility Cloak.”