Creative Conflict

by | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Meetings

 

 

I heard one CEO executive coaching client summarize the tremendous value of his coach’s listening and probing by saying, “This is where I come to get my answers questioned.” Top executives, especially those operating in a strong corporate culture, can find themselves in an echo chamber where everyone seems to be saying the same thing, thereby confusing their mutual agreement with reality. It is the most “obvious” assumptions that most severely constrict our thinking.

Alfred P. Sloan

Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here,” he started, and everyone nodded their heads in agreement. “Then,” he went on, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

–Alfred Sloan
GM 1923-1956

 

 

Key Skills for Entrepreneurs

by | For Business Owners, Leadership Development



A study found remarkably high rates of dyslexia among entrepreneurs, as compared with corporate managers and the general population. What I found particularly interesting was the list of traits dyslexics develop that have them become entrepreneurs more often, have multiple companies, and an above average number of employees.

The dyslexic entrepreneurs reported as good or excellent at: (more…)

Optimism is a Strategy

by | For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Quotes and Aphorisms

Noam Chomsky

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.

Because unless you believe that the future can be better you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope.

If you assume there is an instinct for for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world.

The choice is yours.See it at Amazon

–Noam Chomsky
American linguist and political activist

Two Yous: Who is driving?

by | For Executive Coaches, Leadership Development

Colin WilsonI went through extreme depressions, glooms. There was one occasion on which I decided actually to commit suicide.

I’d got into this state — I was working as a lab assistant at the school, and what would happen was that I’d make tremendous efforts to push myself up to a level of optimism. I’d do it in the evenings by reading poetry, thinking, writing in my journals, then I’d go back to the school the next day and blaaahhh, right down to the bottom again. This was the feeling of The Mind Parasites — there’s something that waits until you’ve got lots of energy and just sucks you dry like a vampire. This sudden feeling that God was (more…)

Always Learning

by | For Business Owners, Leadership Development

 

 

baby

Years ago, an experienced coach and mentor began our meeting by asking about my first child. Just 18 months old, he was eagerly crawling and using a few words.

“It’s a fascinating time,” I replied. “You can almost hear the wheels turning in his head as he experiments to find out what combination of noises and movements is going to get him what he wants.”

I heard myself and paused to absorb the insight.

 

“Wow!,” I continued. “That is still how I spend most of my day.”

 

But not every day. How often do you actually examine how well your “noises and movements” are serving you? Don’t we all expend a lot of energy just repeating tired and familiar strategies rather than observing our results and experimenting with new communications?

It is rare to be as eager and innovative as a baby yet how can we fail to be impressed with the child’s rapid progress? Experimenting, responding, growing, moving forward, relentlessly alive–children know how to learn.

 

How do you stay green and growing? One reliable technique for enhancing our learning, of course, is to work with a supportive and insightful executive coach and surround yourself with people who share your commitment to conscious development.

 

 

Your identity is what you’ve committed yourself to

by | For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Quotes and Aphorisms

John W. GardnerMeaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something.

The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into (more…)

Warren Bennis on Leadership

by | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Leadership Development

 

The Economist newspaper has an excellent summary of Warren Bennis’s work on leadership, adapted from their book: Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus. Bennis makes a strong case for leadership as something to be nurtured and learned.

Four things an effective leader must embody, communicate, and encourage are:

Mr. Bennis and I share, along with many other management consultants and executive coaches, a debt to the pioneering work of Werner Erhard‘s EST and Landmark Education.