Category: Leadership
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Don’t Force It
One of the greatest home chemistry experiments is mixing cornstarch with enough water to make it the consistency of Elmer’s glue. This highly viscous liquid behaves in fascinating ways. For example, if you poke it really hard with your finger it will hurt. If you simply put your finger on it slowly, it will feel…
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The Asymmetry of Order
It took billions of dollars and thousands of minds to build the nuclear power plants in Japan. It took one unforeseen quake and subsequent tsunami to not only destroy the plants, but also the lives of millions nearby. This is the nature of our world, the struggle to create order can be dismantled quickly. Sure,…
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Slow Goals
Dead people are influencing our thinking. Not in a supernatural way, but in how they influenced the way their culture taught their children to think. Consider what words your parents taught you first – objects and colors or verbs? The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett goes through the influence of philophers from thousands of years…
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Only Seeing the Differences
“Wow! That’s really cool that you and the other groomsman wore matching tuxedos!” I was amazed at the comment. How could it be any other way? But this wasn’t a typical wedding, it was my brother and his Swedish bride’s wedding that took place just north of Stockholm. The sum of the comments was even…
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Micromanaging Destroys Initiative
Control is the opposite of trust. This is a challenge for managers who believe they have the clarity to see the right decision for those they manage, yet see their employees going the “wrong” direction. Often they decide to use their control to influence the situation, robbing others the chance to learn from experience and…
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The Anti-Example
I remember thinking, “If I say this, it will be really obnoxious.” And then saying it. This adolescent stage lasted until I turned 16. I remember distinctly when it ended because at the same time my brother turned 12, entering this same stage. Faced with his new-found obnoxiousness, I realized just how annoying I was…
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The Way Things Are
You have to drive through a small river to get to downtown. This is what we realized when we visited a small fishing village turned popular American retirement spot, just north of Puerto Vallarta. A flood knocked out the bridge and so now you have to drive through a shallow 20 foot river that runs…
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Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity
Our organization was overwhelmed with managing changes. We had just made a major product shift and small changes that before had no effect now rippled through the system costing many man hours to manage; many even slipped through the cracks. A friend and I set out to try to understand how the organization was responding…
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Leadership is not a one man job
“…There is no such thing as the perfect leader… In any great leadership team you find at least four personalities, and you never find all four in a single person… You need a strategist or visionary, who sets the goals for where the organization needs to go… You have to have the classic manager –…
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Celebrating Slow Moving Goals
Slow moving goals are hard to celebrate. It’s easy for a small store to add up the cash at the end of the day and see how much money they made. When you’re selling to other businesses and the process takes a long time, it’s easy to lose perspective and miss the opportunity to see…