While weak leaders blame their followers for a lack of alignment, strong leaders know that it is their responsibility to create it. Alignment doesn’t just happen. It is created. Here are three ways to make it happen with your team.

Years ago, I had an idea for one of my coaching clients. It was a fundamental change to her business model that I knew would grow her business exponentially and provide her with more personal margin. But, almost immediately, she started retreating from the idea. Why? Because she couldn’t see how it could be possible.  […]

When you own a business, it is inevitable that at some point you will experience crisis and disruption. The question to ask yourself is, should I pull back or lean in? Being afraid in uncertain times is normal, but fear doesn’t have to define your response. When seasons of crisis come, you can strategically pivot […]

I have worked with authors for more than three decades. Based on my observations, here are 7 characteristics that separate the highly successful ones from the others.

Writing your goals down is one of the most important actions you can take to obtain the life you want. Sadly, most people don’t do it. Here are five why reasons you should.

The Coca-Cola Company’s own website admits that it was probably “a day that will live in marketing infamy.” On April 23, 1985, Coke Chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta announced to 200 reporters that the company would be changing its formula. It would be still be called Coca-Cola, but this “New Coke” would taste better and […]

The road sign in my home state of Washington read: “Litter and it will hurt.” I didn’t think twice about it, but our guests from nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, mouthed the slogan out loud and could hardly believe their ears. They were traveling with us to a birthday party of a mutual friend. “Of all […]

“Don’t rush me, sonny! You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles,” warned Billy Crystal, costumed up as Miracle Max in the 1987 classic The Princess Bride. In the movie, that was a laugh line, but it’s not a bad way to think about the decisions you make as a leader. For every decision that […]

The Wharton-educated bank executive quits weekend bird-watching excursions after missing a prothonotary warbler (rare orange and yellow-headed songbird) sighting. The tenured physics professor storms out of the kitchen because her batch of gazpacho soup turned out a tad too peppery. First-world problems, to be sure. But they’re also the type of increasingly common complaints hyper-accomplished professionals […]

As a kid who wasn’t allowed to watch television, the focus of my childhood was play. The games are too many to count. There was, for example, a little girl who lived in mirrorland and would possess me if I accidentally touched that shiny, reflective surface at night. She scared the heck out of my […]

Winston Churchill once wrote that “The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of first importance”. He knew this well. Even as he warned the world about the threat of totalitarian regimes and led Britain during the Second World War, the statesman crafted many of his more than 500 […]

You already know that busywork does nothing more than create the perception that people are working harder than they really are. In fact, 65 percent of your colleagues surveyed by Havas Worldwide felt that people were simply pretending to be busy. Nor does busywork make you or your company more productive. What you get instead […]

Timothy Wiedman was once a top regional manager for a national retail photofinishing company. He worked hard. Thanks to the company’s “use it or lose it” vacation policy, he made sure to play hard as well. Wiedman’s only requirements before jetting off to some faraway locale? Delegate critical tasks to subordinates, make his boss aware […]

The long-running debate on the value of working remotely has been rendered moot, at least for now, by the coronavirus. Pundits and consultants have debated whether it’s good or bad for productivity and morale. Regardless, the need to have teams work from home has been thrust upon many businesses by the current health crisis. The […]

Emily wanted to work in marketing. She was young and had no experience. She’d skipped college and used a portfolio of work and a Praxis apprenticeship to win a spot on the Customer Success team of a growing startup. But her goal was still marketing. She aimed right at it and started asking people in […]

One of the critical differences between military and civilian organizations is that most military organizations can only simulate their wartime missions in peacetime, and must therefore conduct training which seeks to mimic combat conditions as closely as possible. This is not something that most civilian organizations do with their more high-pressure tasks. The thinking behind […]

What do you do when you wake up in the morning? Do you brush your teeth, take a shower, and eat a bowl of oatmeal? Maybe you go for a run before the rest of the house is up or maybe you press the snooze and lie in bed, going over your day’s goals. Whatever […]

Nearly everyone knows how important sleep is to the body, mind, and spirit. Countless studies have found that a good night’s rest is important for keeping you mentally and physically healthy. And yet, most of us still don’t make good sleep a real priority. While you may not want to admit that lack of sleep […]

The decision to go freelance and break free from the typical nine to five workday was an exciting change. But without the office workday giving me boundaries and keeping me on track, it was easy to get lost in a schedule-less chaos. As my productivity dipped, it became apparent that something needed to change if […]

There is really no way of getting around it: traveling is exhausting. If your professional obligations have you traveling as often as mine do, fighting off travel fatigue can become a job all of its own. As a writer, much of my work focuses on highlighting entrepreneurial solutions to economic and political problems, so I […]

Recently I was sitting in a restaurant in Munich, staring in resignation as my wine glass was refilled another time despite my protestations. It had been a long day of sitting through meetings, punctuated by breaks where we were plied with finger foods and coffee, followed by lunch, and then more sitting, and then after-meeting […]

This article is for people who have spent at least one night sleeping on an airport floor. Perhaps your flight was canceled because of fog and you scrambled to catch the last long shuttle bus home, only to miss that one, too. If you weren’t allowed through screening because the taxi was late and crawled […]

Every year, 64% of Americans plan some sort of getaway vacation. Many people grew up with fond memories of packing up the car and heading to the beach, the lake, or Grandma’s house during the summer months. Sadly, in American culture, the ability to get away is becoming more of a luxury and less of […]

I used to take yearly sabbaticals. For three glorious months each summer my time was more or less my own. I did whatever took my fancy: running around the yard with my siblings, reading books, pestering my parents. You probably did, too. We were little, so the associated learning was not exactly productive. Luckily, sabbaticals […]