Some leaders believe that customers are their most important priority. Others believe their boss, their board, or their investors are their most important priority. I’ve worked in companies where these philosophies were the cultural norm. But I don’t agree with them. I believe your teammates are your most important priority. If you take care of […]

Building an internal culture that loves a challenge is not just a good thing for businesses to do. It is actually essential if that company is going to grow. Employees that are never pushed or challenged grow bored, and surveys have reported that a stagnant work environment is the number one reason that workers look […]

Creativity is not some remote and solitary island. Each day, from the studios of legendary visual effects outfit Industrial Light & Magic to the conference rooms of ad agencies to the mission control rooms of NASA, teams of people come together to conceptualize, develop, and realize innovations in everything from movies to public policy. Yet […]

My team and I have been using Slack as our primary communication platform since June 2014. As we grew, email became unmanageable and other solutions like Basecamp weren’t a fit. After a full-immersion trial, we were sold! But then we unsold ourselves. It took three years. But, just as email didn’t scale with our growth, […]

If you’re in a position of leadership, chances are better than good you’re going to blow it with your people sooner or later. It’s like messing things up in your marriage. Don’t ask me how I know this, but it’s inevitable from time to time. There are pluses and minuses to that comparison, but one […]

Self-starters who take action and get things done are essential to any effective organization. But what are you supposed to do if your teammates don’t show initiative? I was recently talking with a friend. He was frustrated his employees didn’t take enough initiative. The lack was really affecting his business. The problem was he blamed […]

It’s popular to say the customer is always right. It’s also not true. Whether you run a business, nonprofit, or ministry, your team comes first. Get the right team, and you’re off to the races. Hire the wrong team, and you’ll likely move slowly—maybe even backwards. So what’s the trick for getting the best people […]

If you’ve ever worked in retail—and even if you haven’t—you’ve probably heard the phrase, “the customer is always right.” But just because you’ve heard it doesn’t make it true. My daughter Megan enjoys the BBC show, Mr. Selfridge, about pioneering retailer Jeremy Selfridge. Supposedly, he was one of the people to popularize the phrase that […]

If you’re an entrepreneur at heart like me, it’s tempting to wear every hat in the business. This is especially true if you’re cursed with being halfway good at all those jobs. That’s not a compliment, by the way. I should emphasize the word cursed. Think of it this way: Would you intentionally hire someone […]

If you’re trying to build a business, a platform, or just a better mousetrap, it’s a lot easier to hit your goals if you have a team behind you. When I left Thomas Nelson to start speaking and writing full time, I was mostly on my own. I had a speaking agent to help coordinate […]

Are you waiting for someone to give you permission to lead, grow, or move in your organization? What if you already have all the permission you need? I was recently invited to sit on a board and observed something there I’ve seen countless times in other settings. Some people around the table had no trouble […]

This is a guest post by Sean Glaze, a team speaker and motivator. You can check out his blog, and follow him on Twitter. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. What do penguins have to do with leadership and changing your toxic team culture? More than you […]