One occupational challenge I face is trying to stay current with the literature on management and leadership. As in every other field, we have more access to more ideas than those even a generation ago could have ever imagined. In addition to internet-based information, there are a number of good business magazines and newspapers to keep up on and each week brings compelling new titles to the local bookstore. The world is always changing (the rapid rate of technological change presents a significant set of new challenges and opportunities for… Read More

Flipping through a recent issue of a prominent business magazine, I came across yet another article on how organizations are flocking to “mindfulness” training based on traditional Eastern practices. In fact, according to the article some 22% of companies offer such mindfulness training for their employees. There is a lot to be said for such practices, but there is more than one way to become mindful and I prefer the kind of mindfulness work that focuses on developing relaxed, deliberate, and purposeful thought rather than simply breathing and observing our… Read More

Most advice on how to change is very straightforward (and simplistic): Become aware of your patterns and what you need to do differently, then make a plan for doing the new behavior. Of course, if it were that easy, everyone would keep their New Year’s resolutions and the whole self-help industry would fade into irrelevance. Executive coaches like me would have to get real jobs… We all know that change is not easy. The reason that most attempts to change fail is because they overlook a critical step between “become aware” and “act… Read More

Each of us has a particular area of instinctual focus that can significantly affect our leadership style. These instinctual biases incline us to pay more attention to some things and to neglect others, often to our detriment. In a very real sense, because it shapes our focus of attention, our bias shapes what we value. This post identifies those instinctual biases and explores how they influence our leadership style–and what we can do to be more effective. To understand these biases, it helps to imagine watching a documentary about peacocks–yes, peacocks. The first segment of the… Read More