Déjà vu all over again?
How often have you heard that phrase banging against your skull … and how often was it telling you … “I’ve been here before” … “Didn’t we already solve this problem?” … “Why does this subject keep coming up all the time?”
Late last year, I embarked on a retrospective of my first 100 newspaper columns from the last four years. You may recall that I emphasized how often so many of those issues continue to be the same challenges year after year.
They’re constantly resurfacing, often in disguise as a different issue altogether … but really, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
I promised you then that we would attack the litany of reasons that these same issues keep popping up like whack-a-moles. I don’t think we’ve gotten “dumb and dumberer,” so what’s going on? Why are we tackling the same problems over and over again?
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For most of us, this is the time of the year when hope springs eternal. We’re revved up for an exciting new year, determined to change all of the things that didn’t work last year so we can pound the ball out of the park in 2012.
Nothing wrong with any of that. Commitment, momentum, focus … these are the energies that will fuel our engine and help us jumpstart 2012 with the vigor and rigor that we need to make this year the most successful ever.
Yet, like most New Year’s resolutions we’ve made, the “gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight”.
We soon discover that it’s much easier to start than to finish.
We struggle to keep the engine stoked with the same energy that propelled us into the New Year.
We begin to feel some of the air already coming out of the tires, and begin to wonder … “where did that new-found energy go”?
It comes back to that whimpering sound of “hope springs eternal.”
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series.
Do it quickly, don’t look back … and move onRemember how Mom used to say: “You know better than that?”
It wasn’t that we were ignorant or unaware of what was supposed to be done. Quite the contrary. We knew damn well what we were supposed to do but we just didn’t want to do it. Why not?
That’s the eternal conundrum, isn’t it my friends? Why don’t we do what we know we must do?
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series and #100 of my newspaper columns.
The past offers no forgiveness for past transgressions!What’s missing? Why do we keep wrestling with the same issues that we’ve examined and discussed throughout our careers?
That’s what makes it both fascinating … and painful … to be reminded about our timeless journey and our ongoing struggle to find the right balance to fulfill the lives we envision for ourselves.
I’ve always been intrigued by Shakespeare’s line … not only because of its famous lineage, but because so few know the words that follow and give the phrase its power:
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series.
I continue to examine some of the first 100 newspaper columns I’ve written … and continue to be struck by the timeless issues that we face as we build our businesses. We’re human, we make mistakes, we don’t always get done what we intend, we miscalculate, things don’t turn out as planned. Stuff happens. We know we’re on a journey and not just seeking a destination, but that doesn’t diminish our struggle to overcome many of the same forces that have plagued progress throughout civilization.
Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series and #100 of my newspaper columns.
The magical mystery tour continues with another retrospective about some of the subjects covered in my first 100 columns … seriously? … the “first 100”? (Is that a threat or a promise?)
As I considered my earlier columns, I was struck that none of these issues has really gone away. We’re continually battling the same challenges … occasionally finding temporary resolution or respite, but so often juggling so many of them that we don’t take time to resolve 
any of them. Why are we stuck in that do-loop? That’s a conundrum we’ll attack in a forthcoming column.
These quotes launched a few columns about leadership succession in the wake of the sudden terminations of the Merrill Lynch and Citicorp CEOs as the mortgage portfolios held on Wall Street imploded on the eve of the Great Recession. My focus, however, was more about how these colossal organizations, so dependent upon talented, international leadership teams, did not have a management succession plan in place.
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series.
This journey began in the Fall, 2007 and for the most part, bi-weekly since then. The only exception is the most recent L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. series that was published over 12 consecutive weeks. Most of the columns have climbed around the monkey bars at the intersection of Strategy, Finance & Leadership, but according to several keen observers, I’ve also listened in on their boardroom conversations. Others have said they recognized themselves in my examples … I’ll never tell … and some have even said, “stop writing about me”. We’ll never know if it was intentional or accidental, will we?
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today.
Our new series on the building blocks of L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. continues today. You should read the introductory article, The Cornerstones of Effective Leadership, and continue with L = Loyalty, E = Excellence, A = Attitude, D = Discipline, E = Education, R = Reliable, S = Service, H = Humility, I = Integrity and P = Purpose.
Timing is everything, some people say, and in our public and political discourse, every talking head and political observer laments the “lack of leadership” in our political process as we lurch from one unsolved problem to the next crisis. But, what does that mean? What important qualities are missing when we complain of a “lack of leadership”?
In our now concluded L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. series, we covered 10 of the most important building blocks of effective leadership. It’s part of our ongoing quest to grasp the essence of leadership, and we’re not finished. I’m preparing a new, upcoming series to dig deeper to uncover more of these distinguishing qualities and will strive to continue to offer some practical ways to help you become a more effective leader.
You still might say, I don’t get it.
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Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today.
Our new series on the building blocks of L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. continues today. You should read the introductory article, The Cornerstones of Effective Leadership, and continue with L = Loyalty, E = Excellence, A = Attitude, D = Discipline, E = Education, R = Reliable, S = Service, H = Humility, and I = Integrity.
“What are you doing that for?” “Why are we doing things this way?” “Should we add more products or specialize in deeper categories?” “Why do we continue to invest in unprofitable customers?” “Why are we thinking about building a new plant in this dragging economy?”
These are just a few of questions that arise in the course of figuring out what business you’re in. It’s also an appropriate note on which to finish our L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. series with P = PURPOSE, which relates to not only your organization’s direction, but to your own individual purpose as a Servant-Leader.
Among many consultants, the word “Purpose” is routinely exchanged with buzzwords like “Mission,” “Vision,” etc., and its power is often subjugated to those terms.
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Welcome to Exkalibur. I’m Lary Kirchenbauer, President of Exkalibur Advisors, Inc. Please take advantage of our resources to help you build your business ... and let me know what more we can do to serve you.
Read my latest column from the NY Times affiliate, the North Bay Business Journal.
We have a great management team that has built a very successful company. At an important crossroads, we needed more expertise on an expanded list of financial issues than we could provide ourselves. Lary brought that expertise, providing the depth of knowledge and experience that helped us develop and implement a practical solution.
Gary Imm, CEO (retired).
