The Leader’s Job Is to Help the System See Itself
Leadership is a complex topic. Get any number of leadership experts in the room and ask them to define leadership, and you’ll get something that sounds like the mumbling of the jury at a Perry [...]
Permission to Begin
Some of us spend a great deal of our lives waiting for or seeking “permission to begin” from others. It’s a subtle thing. It actually stops us from starting. Waiting for permission—or even [...]
The Civilizing Effects of Choice
In business—and in the knowledge creation fields, especially—we are under pressure to learn and adapt our mental models and practices to new information and knowledge rapidly and frequently. [...]
Personal Autonomy and the Manipulated Follower
On this New Year’s Day, it seems important to reach out and speak to a problem that concerns me in our broader society, something that I would like to see changed, and that I see people agitating [...]
Weak in the Knees
There are only two people on this planet now who make me go weak in the knees in abject admiration when in their presence: Nikki Giovanni and Norm Kerth. They, in many ways, are not alike. [...]
Agile Hot and Heavy
One of the hottest buzz words in many organizations right now is “agile.” We hear about “the agile methodology” and “agile methods.” We hear about scrum, XP, and—far less often—crystal. And we [...]
Character References
30 years ago, even 20 years ago, it was common to be asked to provide two personal references and two professional references when you applied for a job with a company with which you were not [...]
Another Day in the Neighborhood
Like so many of you, I often work in organizations that are in a state of change and have been for some time. This state of constant change can be exhausting or exhilarating, but it is often [...]
