Can Conflict Be Resolved?

Anger. Battle. Hurt Feelings. Innovation. Winning. Losing. Fear. These are the words people think of when we say “Conflict”.

Most of the words are negative – they convey conflict as a difficult, dangerous process. Many will go well out of their way to avoid emotional conflict situations, especially at work. There is a lot at stake. Careers. Money. Power. Opportunity. – It’s personal, it’s emotional and it often times means opening oneself and becoming vulnerable.

The aim… Read the full article >

How to Rally Your Team Using the Natural Workings of the Human Mind

Mediocre leaders focus on having their teams perform carefully proscribed functions for pay. But those companies that excel, those that create extraordinary results in the challenging world of business, are those whose leaders raise the bar to exceptional heights with aspirational ambitions. Aspirational ambitions are established by smart leaders who understand the nature of people. They know that creating something beyond the ordinary requires focusing people on the extraordinary.

The Nature of People’s Mind

According to Harvard… Read the full article >

How to Transform Your Team into Something Special

The team with exceptional performance is essentially its own organism, as Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski pointed out when he said, “To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” Building a strong organization with scalable success requires building a great team. It can mean the difference between outstanding success and crashing failure.

You can’t just bring the pieces to the table. You have to work to put them together.

Yet… Read the full article >

Team Building for a Breakthrough Year

Most leaders are under the delusion that a successful year happens over the course of 12 months. Setting goals and then giving an ongoing effort on a daily basis, creates success. This is not true. A breakthrough year comes fom a combination of team building efforts which start in January. Top performing leaders understand this intuitively and use January to make December great.

“Fantasizing about the future is one of my favorite pastimes.” – Richard Branson

Branson understands the old adage “start with the end in mind.” I met a top performing SWAT team leader who understands this, too…. Read the full article >

How To Shine A Light On Invisible Team Conflict And End It

You sense something is wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. You know the team is stuck, and results are suffering. You hear people here and there talking badly about others.  You have subterranean conflict, conflict gone underground and causing a ripple through all that is going on. Here is what to do.

This 2 minute video is a quick summary of what to do, filmed right after a team breakthrough session to address subterranean conflict. More details on… Read the full article >

When Conflict Breaks Your SWING

When there is subterranean conflict across functions and sub-teams within your management team, it puts you out of swing. The team gets stuck and can’t access all its talent. Eventually this starts slowing down the team and its results. Such a conflict often means that peers aren’t asking for what they really want and need. Instead their unmet request play out in odd ways – unanswered calls, negative gossiping, and resentment building up. Taking the time to bring the whole extended team together and walk through issue by issue, focusing on who needs to do what so you can… Read the full article >

Great Leaders Unleash the Power of Aspiration

Mediocre leaders focus on having their teams perform carefully proscribed functions for pay. But those companies that excel, those that create extraordinary results in the challenging world of business are those whose leaders raise the bar to exceptional heights with aspirational ambitions.
Aspirational ambitions are established by smart leaders who understand the nature of people. They know that creating something beyond the ordinary requires focusing people on the extraordinary.

Aspirational Ambitions are created to stretch your team. JFK… Read the full article >

The Invisible Code Of Extraordinary Leaders

I have detected a Code in successful leaders. One they never state as a strategy, per se, but that emerges like the sun breaking thru the clouds on a foggy day.  

It is so clear and simple that it would never be heralded as an innovation. Because it isn’t. It is an insight that leads to a powerful practice– an invisible one that simply presents itself as a facet of the leader’s personality. 

The code is success = learning mindset + making a difference.

It struck me… Read the full article >

The Best Way To Add More To Your Life/Career Is To Subtract From It

Most people look to make their life better by adding something. Get healthy by exercising more. Get the team more productive by adding more people. Be more successful by gaining more knowledge. In fact the opposite is true. To get better, you need to remove things.

When I discovered I had a tumor 15 years ago, one of the things I learned along the path to vitality was that I had to remove things from my life to get healthier. It is not that I didn’t add things…. Read the full article >

The Enormously Small Moments Of Leadership Greatness

I have come to see that leadership is about small moments.

It is rarely a big moment, with bells ringing and horns blowing, when a leader in name becomes a real leader. But rather a small moment – a moment when an executive suddenly sees that they can make a subtle shift to get different results.

Much of the time I am working with executives in a jam: trying to bring their team to new heights within the chaos… Read the full article >