We all have a sense of our true purpose. As leaders, we can easily be pulled away from this and get distracted by “running the business.” As business owners, our attention can shift from providing value for our clients/customers to being concerned about the survival of the business. This can easily impact our sense of [...]
Compliance Versus Commitment – Revisited
Reposting this article we published several years ago, because it is more relevant than ever… At first glance, compliance might seem like a pretty attractive idea. After all, don’t we want our employees to produce, perform and deliver? Hasn’t the carrot and the stick worked for centuries? Well, yes and no. Incentivizing and penalizing employees can create compliance. [...]
Civility: Front & Center
What Is Civility? “Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process.” Civility is about more than merely being polite, although being polite is an excellent start. Civility fosters a deep self-awareness, even as it is characterized by true respect for others. Civility requires the extremely [...]
Got Lizard Brain?
I usually have to read Seth Godin in small bursts. Two-thirds of the way through his new book, I now know that this overwhelm is not just because of exciting ideas. It’s because his brilliant ideas trigger what he calls my lizard brain. Lizard brain is an ancient, authoritative, and cunning voice that keeps things from [...]
MLK – The Speech that Created a New Reality
August 28, 1963 “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a [...]
Seth Strikes Again.
In my next life, I want to be Seth Godin. He’s creative and generous, and he is using his “marketing” superpowers to make a dramatic difference in the world. He’s done it again with a free 82 page e-book called “What Matters Now.” It arrived in my inbox at 5:24 this morning, and now that I have [...]
The Fun Theory: A Look at VW Culture
How many health pamphlets have you read that suggest taking the stairs to get a little extra exercise during the day? Leave it to a company that “sells cars” to find a creative way to get people to actually change their behavior. VW’s corporate spirit is ”Learning, Innovating, Cooperating, Giving.” For over 70 years they have become [...]
The Ubiquitous Statistic
“70 percent of change initiatives fail.” I have heard this statistic a hundred times – and have no idea where it came from. (FYI – when I researched it, I ended up in an online, space-time continuum.)* However, I sifted through a lot of data that suggest why a lot of change initiatives fail. Here is what [...]
Window Into a Corporate Culture
This summer, the Netflix Culture Slideshare got noticed. Seen it yet? The 128 slide deck (!) takes a big, bold move at publicly declaring its culture and going a step further. The presentation provides workplace examples as to how it walks the walk – including hiring, compensation, vacation policy, development and how it approaches teamwork. [...]
