A note to young leaders. Lessons from our family cat, Misty. Cats have survived the cold calculus of evolution for millions of years. That alone tells me they have something valuable to teach us. Cats combine two qualities rarely seen together: curiosity and caution. Curiosity is a superpower in its own right – it’s a […]
Back in the late 1980’s, scientists constructed a closed ecological facility in Arizona called Biosphere 2. Various representative “biomes” were created in a controlled, optimum environment – including a rainforest, a wetland, a savannah, a sea and a desert. In effect, a miniature version of our planet. The biomes flourished. Trees grew much more quickly […]
If you or anyone else is getting bored in a meeting, it is a sure sign that: the meeting is too long and therefore allowing people to ramble on; the meeting is being held too frequently and so people are repeating themselves; the meeting is poorly run with a boiler plate agenda or no agenda; […]
Barack Obama was a good but not outstanding student at Punahou High School in Hawaii. As he later admitted, he “dabbled in drugs and alcohol,” including marijuana and cocaine. Fast forward a decade or so and Obama is now accepted at Harvard Law School, where he excels graduating magna cum laude and winning election as […]
Read More… from From Struggle to Success: The Power of Encouragement
Pay very little attention to team members when they tell you how much they admire your leadership or love working for your company. Words are cheap. Pay attention to their actions. Do they hold peers accountable to high standards of performance? Do they hold peers accountable to the team’s core values? If they haven’t pulled […]
Read More… from Actions Over Praise: True Leadership Commitment Shows
The time-honoured proverb holds true: fortune favours the bold. Be different, take risks. It’s the only way you’ll experience the thrill of a breakout success. Take the career of one Carlo Ancelotti, the coach of Real Madrid, who on Saturday – at the ripe age of 64 – won his fifth Champions League as a […]
Read More… from Fortune Favors the Bold: Lessons from Ancelotti
Happiness is an art – and art is the elimination of the unnecessary. So just as the first half of life is often focused on accumulation; the second half ought to be focused on elimination. Happiness in adult life is less about adding brush strokes to your busy canvass – and more like a sculpture […]
Lateral thinking is a superpower. Cultivate it. It will reward you tenfold, I promise you. Begin with the belief that you’re a great lateral thinker – then, cultivate the skill. The belief must come first. For just as bravery requires the belief that you are brave, so too creativity requires the belief that you are […]
Read More… from Lateral Thinking: Unlock Your Creative Superpower
Lessons from my father. As a teenager, I recall once sharing a problem with my father – something to do with the way a teacher was going about teaching and testing one of my subjects. Dad listened patiently to my complaint and then looked at me silently with a smile for what seemed an eternity. […]
Read More… from Lessons from My Father: Seeing Problems in 3D