When my older daughter was in high school, we battled often about her clothing. Her school had a dress code that said girls couldn’t wear spaghetti strap tops and their shirts had to cover their backs and bellies. I thought it was my role as her mother to fight that battle on behalf of the […]
Which Battles Do You Choose to Fight and When? Read More »
CAL Newsletter: How Do We Plan for Both Cascading Effects and Catastrophic Success? I learned new words this week for events I’ve seen many times: catastrophic effects and catastrophic success. I’m sure you’ve experienced catastrophic failure. Here’s an example that’s happened to me too often over my career: a disk drive fails, taking all my data with it. I
How Do We Plan for Both Cascading Effects and Catastrophic Success? Read More »
I went to the dentist this morning, for my semi-annual cleaning. The only interesting parts of the visit were their COVID questions and the piped-in music. They asked me about my vaccine and disease status 4 times: when I made the appointment; when I confirmed it by email; confirmation the day before by phone; and
When Do You Choose to Embrace the Past, Present, or Future? Read More »
As a consultant, I regularly work with managers who want predictability. To get that predictability, they want to remove “all” of the risk. They do a lot of up-front planning and estimation. They try to predict how things will go. Then, “Something Happens.” That Something requires adaptability and resilience to manage the risk. Some of
What’s Your Tolerance for Risk vs Resilience? Read More »
2020 has challenged all of us. We’ve learned to work at home and live where we work. Some of us have learned to teach and parent and work. All of us have learned the art of social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing. So why am I asking about how we might challenge ourselves in the future?
Where Will You Challenge Yourself? Read More »
For years, I’ve used the word “guys” as a generic term when I talk about people on teams. One of my reviewers for the Modern Management books offered me this feedback: “When I see or hear the word, “guys,” I assume there aren’t any women.” Oh boy. I decided to change my language. I’ve been
What Do You Tend to Value: Same or Change? Read More »
In these COVID times, some people think they need to play zero-sum games. Those games are the ones where “I win, you lose.” While we might win short-term, we often all lose with zero-sum games. That’s because the game ends. However, there is another kind of game: infinite games. The point of infinite games is
Are You Playing a Finite or an Infinite Game? Read More »
We operate at various levels in our families, work, and society. We have shortcut names for these behaviors: the economic contract and the social contract. When we use the economic contract, we have a document that lays out our responsibilities and rewards. For example, at work, we have a contract for our job that discusses
When Do We Choose the Social Contract & When Do We Choose the Economic Contract? Read More »
We all practice being ready for our plans. For shopping, I make a list and decide in advance how I’ll pay. For travel, I plan when to make all the reservations and how I’ll get from one place to another. When I leave the house, I make sure to gather everything I need, especially now
What Do You Need to be Ready? Read More »
Let me set the context: I’m writing this post in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. I don’t know how you feel, but I range between pessimism and optimism at any given time. I want to stay closer to realistic optimism at any one time. “We”—as in humanity will get through this pandemic. I’m optimistic
How Can You Find Your Realistic Optimism? Read More »