Lead Change Group

Craig Lambert in his book Mind Over Water talks about that frictionless state that rowers achieve when things become effortless. He calls it ‘swing’. He goes on to say ‘…our job is to simply work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat [...]

I watched Saving Private Ryan yesterday.  It was the first time I had seen the movie all the way through.  I enjoy great movies, but few sad ones. I knew enough about this movie to know it was sad.  I also knew the plot and story.  It is truly an inspired classic. James Francis Ryan [...]

Did you see the movie or read the book, The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall? In it the main character, Jason, goes to a Central American nation that I don’t recall to help out with a project that his father was involved in. The project was a library. Jason is a bit jaded when he [...]

When friends and I began talking about character-based leadership on LinkedIn and Twitter and as the group was beginning to grow, we each had different ideas about how to “apply” character-based leadership.  How could we actually make a difference?  How do we actually make the connection between our social-media interactions and our real-life world? In [...]

We have seen the enemy… Do you ever get tired of going through the motions? You know what I mean. In a bit of passive aggression, we give less than our best because our heart is just not in the activity.  We do what we have to and no more.  Can you think of times [...]

In a discussion a few days ago, Mandy Vavrinak made an observation that I promised to write about. She has a knack with words and can typically apply precise wording to a particular effort or idea. She said I was “at war with apathy.” The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines apathy as: A lack of feeling [...]

Did you see the recent Bourne movies; The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum?  In the first movie, The Bourne Identity, Jason and Marie run into the countryside to hide out at her friend Eamon’s chateau.  Another of the Treadstone assasins, The Professor, played by Clive Owen comes to kill Bourne, but [...]

I read a very perceptive post on Harvard Business Review’s blog by Tammy Erickson called How the Recession Is Changing Talent Management. You need to read the article because she presents a compelling case for how the actions of businesses contribute to the prevailing attitude of free-agency in managerial and professional workers. She claims that [...]

It seemed as I was graduating from college in the early 1980′s, prevailing business thought revolved around a passion for the customer. Business writing seemed to be dominated by the power of the customer at least from a marketing perspective. Customers selected the style of car and the flavor of food. Customers were front-and-center of [...]