Leadership | The past offers no forgiveness for today’s transgressions!

History showing old booksWhat’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.

“To be or not to be that is the question.”

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:
(more…)

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Why are the biggest challenges the hardest to kill?

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?


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.

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Why are the biggest challenges the hardest to kill?

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.

Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” ~ Andrew Grove

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

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. (more…)

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#100 – Building a Business: What have we learned in 4 years?

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?


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.

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Finally, Column No. 100?

If I haven’t put you to sleep yet, you’re not reading every one of my columns published in the local New York Times affiliate … and guess what? By my count, this column is a milestone as column #100. Has anyone else written that many … other than the Editor in Chief, of course?

Have I been listening in on your conversations?

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?

What are some of the most important concepts in Building a Business? (more…)

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Leadership Lessons | Do you have the magic elixir of True Grit?

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?

Nothing in life travels in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. A lot of it shows up filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.

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[pullquote]Being in the lead and winning is not the same thing.” ~ Rory McIlroy[/pullquote]

What a dramatic Masters finish tells us about succeeding

No, really, I had no intention of writing about the Masters golf tournament — again. You might want to start by looking at Madness or a Masters in Business … but, this 75th anniversary “tune-a-mint” that ended a few weeks ago offered more lessons than a kindergarten classroom.

What is True Grit? Do you think you have it?

Most of us think of Rooster Cogburn, either in the persona of John Wayne or Jeff Bridges, when True Grit is mentioned.

But, what is true grit? Never say die? It’s never too late? All those, and more, applied to the crushing legion wrangling for the green jacket on that fateful Sunday. Eight players shared the lead over a few hours on Sunday. As in life, the contrasts were remarkable.

Rory McIlroy, who held the lead over 63 holes of the tournament, entered Sunday with a four stroke lead and watched it quickly evaporate as his game imploded — he shot 80 on the final day — as contenders climbed over him from every side. Eight players as far behind as seven strokes down tied for the lead at some point on that bucolic Sunday afternoon.

Life is perplexing blend of success and failure (more…)

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Leadership Lessons: Madness or a Masters in Business?

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?

Nothing in life travels in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. A lot of it shows up filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.
We’re also 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 some time so you’re thinking past today.

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[pullquote]“I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.” ~ Justice Earl Warren[/pullquote]

Get in the game. Enjoy the Ride.

The week just ended is my favorite sports week of the year. Some of you will say, “Nah, you got your calendar mixed up. Baseball season opened the previous week.” Of course, I could say, “but the home opener for the Giants was that week” and then you’d say, “OK, so you’re a big Giants fan. I get it.”

A few of you may suspect that’s not the reason. Not that I don’t love the World Champion San Francisco Giants and all … but honestly? That didn’t even occur to me as I braced for the greatest sports week of the year.

What’s not to like?

There are a lot of reasons why I love this past week. (more…)

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Leadership Styles: The Smartest Guys in the Room can kill you!

When a fellow says it hain’t the money but the principle o’ the thing, it’s th’ money.” — Frank McKinney

‘Always ask why.  Dig deeper.  Get the facts.’ Avoid the crowd mentality

“Ask Why” was their motto.

“Wheel Out,” “Fat Boy” “Death Star” and “Get Shorty” were some of the nicknames applied to their strategies.

Confirmation letters of successful trades were addressed to names like “Mr. M. Yass and “Mr. M. Smart” … and I think you can parse the underlying contempt.

“Rank & Yank” described their people performance system, “Pump and Dump” their trading strategy.

About $70 billion of market value was destroyed, more than 20,000 employees lost their jobs and pension funds worth $3.2 billion were destroyed, more than two thirds of which belonged to retirees with little chance to rebuild.

I had always intended to watch “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” the 2005 movie based on a book by the same name from co-authors Peter Elking and Bethany McLean, but it got lost in the shuffle until last week.

It chronicles the Enron cataclysm, whose meteoric ascent was violently terminated with its bankruptcy on Dec. 3, 2001.

“Be like Enron” is still an ignominious curse

It’s hard to believe this happened almost 10 years ago since to be “like Enron” still reverberates as an ignominious curse. It’s really more like a viral infection, though, because so many of the forces that drove its destruction have cleaved similar fissures in scandals from (more…)

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Leadership Lessons | What is the Cornerstone of your Strategy?

At this time of year, we all get excited about personal renewal, our plans for the coming year and how we can enhance our personal and professional lives in 2011.

Even though most of us have traveled the road of broken resolutions, hope springs eternal as we prepare to refresh our commitment and recharge our batteries … and make plans to overcome our shortcomings and rise to new levels of success.

There are many fashionable approaches to this process, many of them with valuable insights.

Jonathan Fields chose 10 words to focus his energy. His approach is an expanded derivation from a three-word approach used by Chris Brogan, who, like me, uses his carefully chosen words “the way a lighthouse helps a ship in a storm.”

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

Ernest Hemingway used only six words to write what he called his greatest novel … and the more you think on it, the more intriguing it becomes.

It’s one more approach you can use to bring the essence of your 2011 plan into sharp focus.

Although we’re more interested in clarity than mystery in our annual pilgrimage to the altar of realistic expectations, this approach, like those of Jonathan and Chris, also celebrates the power of simplicity.

Find the Cornerstone of your strategy

[pullquote]“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” – Alvin Toffler[/pullquote]

Maybe you’ve used variations on these K.I.S.S. principles to craft all sorts of goals and objectives … memorialized in lists, notebooks and diagrams.

Yet, when we step back into the maelstrom of real life, distractions intrude, new input floods our inboxes, and without seeing it, we start to slowly drift off course. We madly implement course correction procedures, but instead of returning us to our original direction, they cause us to lurch about, each adjustment resulting in a slightly different course even further from our original objective.

So, how many words does that leave us? (more…)

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Vol 72: Seven Swing Thoughts to Overcome Adversity

“Thankfully, perseverance is a good substitute for talent” — Steve Martin

7 Swing Thoughts to Overcome Adversity

The recent 92nd PGA championship ended tragically for Dustin Johnson based on a questionable and controversial call. What virtually every observer, from fans to PGA champions, saw as a sandy area of the rough outside of the ropes was declared by rules officials as a sand trap even though spectators were standing in it. Under the rules of golf, that resulted in a two-stroke penalty because a player can’t ground his club in the sand. It cost him a chance to participate in a three-hole playoff for the trophy in one of golf’s four major championships.

It was heart-breaking to watch and even brought a roar of disapproval from the usually reticent golf crowd. For most casual observers, it’s a distinction without a difference  …  but in the rules-driven PGA tour, it was a judgment call without heart or soul. Mr. Johnson’s disappointment now competes with Armando Galaragga’s recent loss of a perfect game in baseball.

What do we do when we suffer a major disappointment, e.g., the loss of a major client we served so well or the departure of a valued employee to whom we thought we had extended every opportunity? (more…)

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