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Reflections

Thoughts Along the Journey

“Sure, I’ve successfully run a couple of large businesses, but I still worry I don’t quite measure up to my peers.” “I often feel like people are going to discover that my degrees don’t really mean I actually know what I’m talking about.” …
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity aren’t going away — don’t get stuck just surviving! In our last post, Thriving Through VUCA, we warned of the dangers of too much survival-mode focus on stability and reducing complexity, and sugg…
The military acronym of VUCA has given us a shared language that represents our experiences of volatility-uncertainty-complexity-ambiguity in our rapidly evolving realities. Depending on the influences of nature and nurture, each of us has a uniqu…
Balancing objectivity with subjectivity defines the art of giving and receiving feedback. Leading with too much objectivity can potentially turn a meaningful process into a transaction that diminishes value and engagement. Subjectivity, in this ca…
It’s human nature to want to avoid discomfort and create control over our environment. In truth, control provides us with a sense of security and coping mechanism to live through whatever the moment presents. Experiencing discomfort sometimes l…
We can all think of a person who possesses that unique “Je ne sais quoi” quality that seems to bring that person to the right place, at the right time, not just once, but more consistently over time. What differentiates that person from the rest o…
It is never too late to become who you were meant to be. I lived most of my life stepping through doors that were opened for me based upon my specific experience set. Once on the other side of the door, I always found a path to success, service…
Given the increasing rate of retirement for many baby boomers, companies must reset their expectations around attracting and retaining Millennials. We can learn a lot from the retail and fashion industry regarding their strategies to grab the atte…
Although the concept of Failure to Launch is typically applied to adolescents struggling to transition into adulthood, it can also be a way to understand how some teams fail to achieve mastery not only in terms of high performance but in terms of …
Will the real IQ please stand? There’s no doubt that we respect intelligence in a leader but how far does that truly go when creating a loyal followership? When faced with what we perceive as an insurmountable challenge, do we want to be led by th…
Now, more than ever, we have to engage our compassion and lead from the heart. As the full impact of Covid-19 continues to emerge, there is likely to be an ongoing “working through” that needs to occur across all levels – individual, team, and org…
With deeply disturbing events, we can reopen old wounds that have and will likely never heal. Our emotional memories have no shelf-life. We can try to move on but for some, the past continues to get relived in the present when cultural change is n…
As we continue to navigate the uncharted territory of Covid-19, we must make peace with uncertainty in order to move beyond a sense of powerlessness, terror, anger, and loss. This transformation requires that we manage expectations of ourselves an…