Charles Duhigg, acclaimed author of The Power of Habit, has written another very useful book, Smarter Faster Better. Duhigg's research, based on neuroscience, psychology and behavioral economics, reveals that there are eight core concepts that are the secret to increasing your own productivity as well as that of your team. The eight concepts are: 1.To Generate Motivation [...]
In the early part of the 21st century, a team of brilliant engineers working for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was given the assignment of designing a way to deliver a 5,400 pound entry vehicle carrying a 2,000 pound rover (Curiosity) onto a precise spot on the surface of Mars, a planet that was 140 million [...]
Dr. Jeffrey Young and Dr. Janet Klosko have written a potentially life-altering book, Reinventing Your Life - The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again. The authors describe common negative life behaviors, feelings and patterns called lifetraps, which they describe as "patterns that start in childhood and reverberate throughout life". They write that [...]
Marcia Reynolds, in her book The Discomfort Zone - How Leaders Turn Difficult Conversations Into Breakthroughs, writes about five myths that effectively challenge the assumption that employees always reveal to their managers their thoughts, fears, desires and ideas. Reynolds is correct in stating that employees often don't ask for things that are on their minds. Barriers [...]
Neuroscientists have presented us with compelling reasons why, in the business world, we love to spend an excessive amount of time planning. Because our brains crave certainty, we want to make sure that we cross all our t's and dot all our i's before shifting to implementing our plans. Because so many of us are [...]
Marshall Goldsmith, in his excellent book Triggers, identifies fifteen inner beliefs that trigger failure and "sabotage lasting change by canceling its possibility" in our efforts to change our behaviors. He writes that we "employ these beliefs as articles of faith to justify our inaction and then wish away the result". These fifteen destructive belief triggers are: [...]
Bill George, senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former CEO of Medtronic, has written a compelling article, The Rise of True North Leaders, in the Winter 2016 edition of Leader to Leader. George laments the fact that the past decade has seen a failure in leadership within the business community - as witnessed by the bankruptcies [...]
It's over twenty years since Jim Collins and Jerry Porras published their landmark book Built to Last, but the lessons we learned back then are applicable today. In the book, Collins and Porras identified eighteen companies (Disney, P&G, Marriott, Nordstrom, General Electric, etc.) that had significantly out-performed financial markets over a minimum fifty year period while [...]
I facilitate an exercise in my Leadership Development Program where I ask each participant to identify the best leader who he/she has ever known. This leader can be from the past or present, be real or fictional and can come from any walk of life (business, sports, politics, community, religion, etc.). I next ask participants [...]
Janice Marturano, in her excellent book Finding the Space to Lead...A Practical Guide to Mindful Leadership describes the mindful leader as one who "embodies leadership presence by cultivating focus, clarity, creativity and compassion in the service of others. Marturano writes that "mindful leadership does not ask you to change everything and everyone around you. It teaches [...]
