Category: Leadership

  • Triathlons: A story in gradual change

    Triathlons: A story in gradual change

    Last weekend, I found myself shirtless with swim trunks along with 126 other people in a variety of swim attire on the side of a pool. A number written with a black sharpie on my right arm.  It was 6:45 in the morning and I was about to swim 450 meters, then quickly throw on…

  • Trickle Change

    Trickle Change

    Last Friday, as I was waiving goodbye to the family to head to work, I turned the key in the ignition.  Nothing.  No lights, no beeping sounds, nothing. After riding my bike all week, an open door drained the battery dead.  So I hopped on my bike again and hoped it wouldn’t snow on my…

  • Respect The Rough

    Respect The Rough

    When playing a dog-leg hole in golf (one that bends to the left or right), it’s pretty easy to believe that shooting over the trees and taking the shortest path to the hole will result in us winning. We tell ourselves, even if we end up short in the rough with the trees, many times…

  • The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

    The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

    A close friend recently told me about his final motorcycle ride. Back when he was in college, he rode his 150cc bike to school each day without a helmet or gloves or really any protective gear.  His mom worried for his safety and after hounding him to get a helmet, she finally just up and bought…

  • The Way We’ve Always Done It

    The Way We’ve Always Done It

    Ever watch a child learn how to walk, or really learn how to do almost anything?  It takes days and days of repetitive attempts. Each day mostly consisting of failure but slowly they show progress.  More attempts and soon they’re walking, then running, then jumping, then dancing. We don’t learn to walk by accepting that…

  • Leading Under Uncertainty

    Leading Under Uncertainty

    At a previous company, we brought in an external CEO to help us raise our second round of financing.  He came in guns blazing and as the months passed claimed to have found a number of investors interested in our company.  He took several fairly expensive trips oversees all in the name of drumming up…

  • Teamwork Means Not Getting Your Way

    Teamwork Means Not Getting Your Way

    When I started working for Tuscany (a software startup), I was given a task by one of the other engineers.  After a few weeks, I had completed the code and sent the code for review to the more senior engineer.  He looked at it and said, “Well, that’s not the way I would have done…

  • Communication Tug Of War

    Communication Tug Of War

    Is it ever okay to lie to a customer? We’ve all seen it happen.  It seems easier to simply commit to the impossible and then slip the schedule later than to say no now and take the hit.  Sometimes the customer demands to be lied to.  How often have we seen a customer that keeps making…

  • The Adult Version Of Chicken

    We’re all familiar with the rather silly adolescent game of chicken — A group of people stand in the middle of on-coming traffic and the last one to jump out of the way “wins”. Or in another version, two kids drive cars toward one another and the one that swerves “loses”. As adults, we look…

  • The Risks and Rewards of Coaching

    Anyone who has had a good coach recognizes their value. From outside the relationship, it can be hard to see why. Our coaches usually don’t look like they could do what they are asking us to do, usually they can’t. Their skill set differs from our skill set — we can do but they can…