Companies today aren’t managing your career. You must be your own HR guru. That means it’s up to you to identify your place in the world and know when to change course. It’s up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive. This is the premise of Peter Drucker’s 2005 HBR article “Managing Oneself”. Peter Drucker asks … Read more
They lie, they manipulate and they pick fights: Some colleagues are ruthless, especially when it comes to their own professional advancement. Avoiding a toxic employee can save a company more than twice as much as bringing on a star performer. The trouble with Toxics is that they are difficult to detect. Often, Toxics are popular with … Read more
Creative Indifference A good gardener creates the conditions for growth of a garden, but cannot force the flowers to grow in an exact way. The good gardener creates the conditions and accepts what arises. The bad gardener fights what arises. The bad gardener hacks and chops and fights against the natural growth of nature. The … Read more
Life is not hard, it is easy. That is the problem. Why do we stop chasing our dreams? Because it is so easy to wake up, do the minimum, eat, sleep and repeat. Meet someone, bring up kids, drift and die… It is easy to live. That is the curse. It is easy to look … Read more
Reading an interview with Will Smith (he is deep and a keen observer of the human condition), I came across this statement from him: “Put somebody on a treadmill and I’ll tell you how good they are at any other thing they do in life.” Will Smith Harsh. Brutal. but… is it True? I think … Read more
Two leaders in the same circumstances doing the same thing can bring about completely different outcomes. I’ve often wondered why. It is more than just luck. It is an inner quality of certain leaders. There is a quality to certain people’s intent, capacity to observe without judging, capacity to see a new way to put … Read more
The Most Important Decision ‘We choose our spouses. We choose our bosses. We choose our friends. We choose the people who work with us. We choose our nannies. We choose our lawyers. We choose our doctors. It is definitely worthwhile investing in learning, because this is not rocket science, but it requires discipline.’ Claudio Fernández-Aráoz Claudio … Read more
We collect habits, items, people that served us in a given moment, but are not serving us now. Human beings come pretty well designed for Systematic Accumulation, adding more and more plans, projects, dreams to my bucket list. As we move through life we accumulate dreams, fantasies, projects, stuff. I often think about what else I would … Read more
First, you may ask, what is “Strategic Unavailability” anyway? What is Strategic Unavailability? If you say “yes” to every request for your time, money or attention you will have none for the areas that are your own personal priority. If you want to achieve success, you must retain most of your resources and dedicate them … Read more
What kind of leadership do we need now? In his 30 years of asking this question, Dr Stew Friedman has heard one word become increasingly common: Flexible How to achieve Flexible Leadership? Have you ever wondered if “work/life balance” exists? How do some of the world’s most successful professionals find harmony in work and with … Read more