Words of Wisdom

Reflections On the Year and How Best To Prosper in the New Year

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the opportunities this year has presented. From small business owners to the leaders and employees of large companies, no one was exempt from the huge challenges that we had to meet. Many of my clients understood they could no longer do business as they ...

The Power of Stories

This post is about the power of stories. The Institute for Co-Intelligence defines the power of story as follows: “Stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating shared realities. It ...

Great Questions to Ask Yourself to Begin a New Year

This post is about preparing for a new year. I always ask some of my clients to answer these questions in preparation for a new year. Answering them is a useful exercise to help us re-set and re-focus. They help us to take action on what we want to let ...

The Importance of Appreciating Beauty

This post is about beauty: beauty in what we see, beauty in what we do, how we perceive beauty and the effect it has upon us. I was thinking about this subject today because it was an incredibly beautiful day. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and days of ...

How To Be A Responsible Manager and Leader

This post comes from an article I read in the Harvard Business Review. It’s entitled, “The Responsible Manager” by K. Prahalad, who was a distinguished professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business before his untimely death in 2010. Among other innovative ideas, he created core competencies for ...

How To Feed Our Inner Hunger

This post is about hunger, as in hungering for something you don’t have. We all understand the typical use of this word as it relates to food or material things. But, I want to address the spiritual or emotional hunger that can create so much longing within us we ...

Feed Your Business For Continued Success

This post is about the importance of continuing to feed your business so it continues to grow and thrive. Chip Kelly was the football coach for the University of Oregon Ducks for 4 seasons. He is easily remembered for introducing the fast paced offense that soon became the team’s trademark. ...

The Challenge of Being Innovative

This post is about the challenge of being innovative in organization’s that squash it. I once read an editorial by Dick Brass entitled, “Microsoft’s Creative Destruction.” The piece focused on how the company’s corporate culture stifled creativity, innovation and, ultimately, the future of the organization. Because this article was ...

Ways to Create Lasting Change – From the Inside Out

Here’s a post is about how real change occurs. My inspiration comes from the I-Ching, or Book of Changes, which is a Chinese text of philosophy and divination written more than 5,000 years ago. It is organized in hexagrams, or patterns of six broken and unbroken lines. Here is ...

The Dangers of Ready Comprehension

Here’s a post that came from the weekly sales thought from Nick Miller*, president of Clarity Advantage Corp., a sales consulting firm in Concord, Mass. (http://www.clarityadvantage.com/). week and since I’m on his mailing list, I always appreciate his writing, but the following suggestion in particular stuck out as useful. ...

Confronting Bullying

This post focuses on recognizing and addressing bullying—behavior that remains far too common in schools, workplaces, teams, and families. I remember how shocked I was to read the story of a young Irish girl who moved to Massachusetts and became the target of relentless bullying by her peers. The abuse ...

The Importance of Experimenting With Different Leadership Styles

This post shares an editorial from David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, who reminded me again how different leadership styles can be successful in his piece, “The Humble Hound.” We all know typical maverick leaders who aggressively hit for the home run each time: They are aggressive, ...

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