She had dark circles under her eyes as she walked into the conference room. Not just Friday-morning dark circles, but major-product-launch dark circles. I asked her how she was doing. She was ready to explode with fury. A key project was hitting a deadline, and a member of her team hadn’t been able to pull [...]
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The Snot Factory Story
People say that their faith is tested during tough times of job loss or divorce. But, I’m not so sure I had much faith to test. You likely know my story of getting fired because it was shared in Harvard Business Review’s forum on failure. That is the secular part of the story. I have [...]
Culture Trumps Strategy, Every Time
Trust, fights, and child care. When I’m advising start-up teams nowadays, I ask a lot of questions around those three areas. Which makes it sounds more like a marriage counselor’s office, rather than a boardroom, right? Quite often, the teams I’m talking with think culture is some woo-woo stuff that doesn’t make any difference in [...]
Is TED Elite?
I see a lot of interesting myths perpetuated about TED, and while I risk being seen as a TED-promoter, I want to take them head-on and — perhaps — help address them more directly with a few facts. (Some context about me. I am only a four-time TED conference attendee; pay my own way, etc. [...]
Kick-Ass-Ness
A complete sense of being fully alive. Showing your creativity. Being yourself. Having confidence. Feeling motivated. Getting challenged, but not too overwhelmed. Having a rich, intense sense of joy. Exuding enthusiasm. Believing and acting in a way that anything is possible.Trusting ourselves, and our ability to learn. Trusted by others. Being courageous. Knowing (and loving) [...]
Three Times You Have to Speak Up
It was said of Abbot Agatho that for three years he carried a stone in his mouth until he learned to be silent. I was thinking about that story by Thomas Merton during a recent board meeting. The CEO and CFO were marching through their 112-slide presentation. Recent market updates, a technical deconstruction of various [...]
What Surrounds Us, Affects Us.
We are all connected. We mostly know that. Do we also realize that who we hang with affects our moods, what we think about as valid, it shows up in our decisions, and it affects what we create? Maybe. This week, I worked with an editor to create my first post for the HBR (Harvard [...]
Are you a Rebel or a Leader?
Everyone was being so agreeable. The CEO nodded, the VPs agreed, the Directors were polished in their reviews. All the content was “good,” the timelines “reasonable,” the budgets “sufficient.” We were in a meeting to review the roadmap for the company’s new product. And it had all the hallmarks of a Potemkin village. I wanted [...]
Rogues, Misfits Or Heroines?
Moments define, or rather they let us redefine who we are. We are all familiar with the story of Rosa Parks and how it contributed to the civil rights movement. She refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. At the time, Parks was secretary [...]
We Are Always 2
To deny one’s past and only focus on aspirations is to be flighty. To only focus on what you’ve already done is to bounded by history. To neglect aspirations is to deny our ability to create. To forget our humble beginnings is to deny our heritage. We are always 2: both our past and our [...]