The New Year’s Liminal Moment

The new year is off and running. Your schedule is filling, and the work is ramping up. It’s a unique liminal moment when you’re entering the portal of the new year, and can still look back at the last one. Before challenges and changing priorities capture much of your time, there’s an opportunity to assess your progress from ‘what is’ to ‘what can be,’ to evaluate what worked well and what must improve. Last year, …

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Agile Productivity

People are often a company’s most expensive resource. So, optimizing people’s productivity often means keeping everyone busy on their functional duties, increasing the likelihood that every employee, of every skill type, will be fully utilized.   The downside? No department’s workers know how their labor affects other departments in the operation of the business. One department’s productivity may be high, but the company as a whole may not be moving faster or with more flexibility.  In this age of agility, in which businesses need to respond faster, leaders …

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3 Revelations of Optimistic Leadership

Counting our blessings during Thanksgiving often generates optimism and energy.  Optimism, as it turns out, makes a difference in business metrics like productivity, customer satisfaction and profit. Why? Because optimistic people expect to succeed. When they encounter obstacles, they try harder – instead of giving up, they find ways to overcome the barriers and reach their objective. Leaders who are optimistic raise the aspirations of their people to see what’s possible and to achieve their …

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The Problem Isn’t What You Think

Often, the problem that leaders think they have is not the real problem. If they understood their real problem, then they would fix it. The fact that the problem still exists is a likely indicator that the real issue remains unresolved. The symptoms of their problem are more visible so that becomes the focus of their work. Are you working on your symptoms, unaware of the real issue? It’s that time when the past year’s …

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Programmed to Take the Easy Way?

Demonstrating Commitment or Convenience The other day, we were standing in line to use the “up” escalator.  The queue was long, despite the fact that right next to the escalator was a flight of steps that no one was using.The staircase wasn’t too long…about half as long as you might see going to the next floor at a department store.  Yet, there we all were in line, most of us looking reasonably healthy and able …

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