The Synergist A business book meant for the real-working leader, Les McKeown gives an intuitive model to allow anyone to lead. The notion is that every team needs a blend of visionary, an operator, and a processor. And the often invisible but crucial role that blends all these 3 is a synergist, able to find [...]
The Too Short Meeting
I’m about to head off to a meeting that I’m sure will be too short. Too short as in not enough time to actually discuss, deliberate, and resolve conflicts within the many ideas that could be generated. Too short to allow people to feel heard. Too-short to explore nuances. Too short for everyone to “get” [...]

Must Read Weekend Reading
Seems like most of the content we find online starts with a list as in 6 ways to do X, or 5 ways to improve Y. Curating the more thoughtful pieces worth reading in full is what this post theme of must-read work is all about. This week’s assortment has a very corporate theme. Must [...]
What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Growth
Finding that first market — a few customers willing to pay for your early product – is hard enough. But there’s one thing that may be even harder. And that’s finding the second market. Especially because companies are often so focused on protecting what they already have. In 1996 when Steve Jobs first returned to [...]

5 Ways to Take Advice
“What do you do?” When I was starting a consulting company called Rubicon back in 1999, my nephew wanted to know what I did for a living. Having just finished running a division of a company where I was responsible for setting and delivering on a specific measurable result, I noticed I was having a [...]

Be Unhappy
When you want to be healthy, you could focus on the good stuff you want; maybe you work out and eat healthy to have toned arms, or firm abs, or even a certain weight on the scale. But if you are unhealthy today and you are going to change your habits, you have to first [...]

Picking the Big Idea
Most of us make things happen, get results, and deliver. But ask us if we’re focused on building our vision, on our big goals or if we even know what our big goal is, and what will likely follow is some combination of this: a big pause, or a look down at the carpeted floor, [...]

MurderBoarding™
It’s not about how many ideas we have, it’s how many we kill so that we end up with 1 unifying, clear answer for what matters to us and why. That’s the philosophy behind MurderBoarding ™. MurderBoarding provides a framework for a group to arrive at a shared decision around 1 direction. While many resources [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]
About Nilofer…

Nilofer Merchant is a corporate director (NASDAQ: EPAX), TEDx / Keynote speaker, and an inspiring Harvard Business Review columnist.
Read her work and you'll see she's also a bit of a rebel-rouser, wanting to ignite fearless cultures, everywhere.
Where to Meet Up
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And, Who Are You?
August 24, 2011
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What Replaces Marketing
April 4, 2012
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What’s Your ScoreBoard?
September 26, 2011
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Rogues, Misfits Or Heroines?
December 7, 2010
- Is TED Elite? March 6, 2011
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Just How Powerful Are You?
April 30, 2012
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Resilient Organizations & Open Networks
April 23, 2012
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Advice to Writers
April 17, 2012
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The Synergist; Valuing All the Roles
April 16, 2012
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What defines scale?
April 11, 2012
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Michele Tilander: This identifies many of us who know that while oth...
- The dilemma of ‘free’ | Journeys towards Justice: [...] a taste of the amazing: Nilofer Merchant rec...
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Nilofer Merchant: I really like slide 7 because of the full Wizard o...
- Can Women Leaders Truly Succeed In Your Organization? - Carge77.com: [...] chosen professions, regardless of gender, cr...
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Susan: Enjoy your posts. This one struck a chord. The so...
Follow @nilofer on Twitter
- 2 people I listen for re: FB. One is @davidkirkpatric (already tweeted his post) and other is @clarashih: http://t.co/IKuAnJEX 22 hours ago
- Education is dramatically ready for reform. TED_ED overview by @CBM is a nice example of 1 move: http://t.co/dvp81SmR 23 hours ago
- Imagine if you were a cloud or hosting company, you could analyze, provide "data information analysis"? c @jobsworth 1 day ago
- If I were on FB's Board, I'd encourage them to have portfolios be apart of the profile / timeline. 1 day ago
- If I were still a CEO responsible for figuring out what's next, I'd go to this workshop by @lesmckeown http://t.co/M2FTFXAk 1 day ago






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