Who’s Got Your Back? Pressure and Resilience
The recent news about Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka made me sad—for them personally, for their potential accomplishments, and for us as a society. How much pressure do they feel,…
Read moreWhose Experience and Expertise Do You Trust and When?
I have limited expertise. (I have many opinions, but I have limited expertise.) That means I need to decide when to trust someone else’s expertise. My decisions depend on many…
Read moreHow Can You Create Better Interactions?
A funny thing happened these past couple of weeks. Instead of short messages in my LinkedIn messaging, I’m receiving messages that look like newsletters. Not too long, but not short…
Read moreMistake vs. Success: When Do You Learn from Each?
Back when I was a software developer, I excelled at certain mistakes. I could write an infinite loop faster than anyone. Then there was the off-by-one mistake for arrays or…
Read moreDo You Offer Your Attention to People Who Deserve It?
I spoke with a treasured colleague, Alex, a couple of weeks ago. He told me he was so busy he couldn’t “find” the time to write. I asked about his…
Read moreWhen and How Do You Ask for What You Want?
Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open this week. Why? Because she would have to meet with the media right after her play. This is a big deal. She’s one…
Read moreWhat Do You Forget to Notice?
I read Daniel Steinberg’s newsletter about Small Big Thinking. He wrote about small things that appear big. And big things that appear small. In my experience, those small big things…
Read moreDo You Need to Focus or Harness Your Energy?
A colleague worries that his team wants to change too much about how they work, all at once. He said, “They have 47 ideas that they want to use, to…
Read moreWhat’s Your Tolerance for Risk vs Resilience?
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…
Read moreHow Will You Renew Yourself?
Now that I’ve had my vaccinations, I’m ready to renew myself. I miss seeing people, locally and worldwide. However, I definitely do not want to work and live the way…
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