How History Can Build A Great Team
I can't stop thinking about our Eastern European vacation this summer. If you've ever been to Europe, you'll know that one thing always stands out: History. Europe has couches older than our entire country, and that got me thinking. The First Nations of America can...
The Hidden Value Of Curiosity
My family and I just got back from an amazing vacation in Eastern Europe. While we were there, we stayed with a Hungarian family, the family of an exchange student we hosted last summer. Our time with them was incredible, and in hindsight I've been struck by a...
You Don’t Have To Have The Answers
One of the most important truths to remember as a leader is this: Just because you're in charge, doesn't mean you have all the answers. In fact, often, the most powerful answers to the questions we struggle with the most come from the people we least expect. When...
Don’t Keep Us In The Dark
There is a ‘leadership’ mindset out there which always leaves me flummoxed. I cannot understand why anybody, much less a leader of an organization hoping to be successful, would adhere to it. And yet, it is a mindset nearly as ubiquitous as any other: the...
Negotiation Is Not About Winning
Since we’re on a streak with posts on “negotiation,” I thought it essential to point out a lesson I learned in one of the titular books on the subject, “Getting To Yes,” written in the 80’s by two Harvard professors. This is the most powerful lesson I took away from...
Negotiation Means Defining Your Measurements
Like we saw a few weeks ago, there inevitably will come a time in your career when you’ll have to convince someone else -- to change their mind. This is sales; this is, essentially, negotiation. When my client wanted to convince her boss to hire a co-leader team,...
Sales, Sales, Everything is Sales — Including Leadership
If you see sales as manipulation, the title of this article may make you bristle.However, if you see sales as service, it will make perfect sense. Rather than the art of convincing people to do things they don’t want to do, real sales is the art of matching product...
6 Ways To Change Someone’s Mind
What do you do when you feel a need to change someone’s mind and they’re resistant? After all, people don’t change -- right? Meghan was in just this predicament. Real and significant change was needed and no one was willing to see it. As an interim director she was...
An Exercise In Interpretation
Last week, we talked about how to avoid misinterpretation. This week, I want to share with you an exercise that can really drive that point home -- and help you and your team understand this cognitive dissonance. Have your whole team (yourself included) write down the...
What To Do When You’re Blindsided By Misinterpretation
Here’s a sentence you don’t hear very often: Turns out Nixon was right! Not about all things, of course -- but when he said “I know you think you know exactly what you thought I meant to say. But what you fail to realize is what you heard was not what I meant at...
