The Beatles are the best-selling popular music band of all time. They must have done a lot of things right. What? They started as a homespun “skiffle” group called The Quarrymen in a roots style of music that was popular at the time. John Lennon was the leader and driving force behind the band. John and other musicians of his generation soon became enamored with American blues and rock and roll, and they began to mimic their musical heroes. John was soon introduced to Pau

I recently had to withdraw from a long-term client. It made me sad, but it was necessary because I found myself in conflict with a personal value that I hold dear—The Golden Rule. In the early days it was exciting to be part of the meteoric rise of the company. There were many obstacles to be overcome, and everyone pulled together to achieve impressive success. There was a sense of belonging to something special that was both invigorating and fulfilling. A few years later

I’ve been unfortunate to work with a couple of companies whose leaders cared only about short-term financial results and very little for their employees or customers. These leaders missed two big opportunities: 1. To create greater financial success over time by building a sustainable business model. 2. To create more happiness in the world by treating employees and customers with greater respect and caring. Case study #1: The leader of a manufacturing facility was

Lately I’ve seen a great deal of glorification of being “tough” as a leader. This interpretation of being “tough” implies that all relationships should be governed by a dominant-submissive model, i.e., one person wins and the other loses. This model also implies that seeking cooperation, teamwork, and win-win relationships is naïve and “weak.” This outlook sees the world as a literal jungle of constant struggle for survival where there are limited resources and only winners

If you’re reading this newsletter, you’re likely in the high achiever cohort, i.e., you’re achievement oriented and have worked extra hard to get where you are. It’s also very likely that you’re in a leadership position of some sort. This can be stressful, and it’s easy to lose the life balance that makes you happy and motivated and that makes all your efforts seem worthwhile. So, what do you do when you find yourself overly stressed and in an emotional and motivational “

Let’s talk for a moment about emotional intelligence, i.e., understanding how people work emotionally. Since emotions drive most of our behavior, this is a very important skill to develop, wouldn’t you say? Since business success is, at the heart of it, about building win-win relationships, then it is particularly important to sustained success. At the most basic level, we treat others like we treat ourselves. You can only share what you have. It’s obvious that you can’t sh

1. The audience wants you to do well. Whether they want to be entertained, informed, or to complete a project, they want you to do well because it’s better for them. Sometimes there are a few unhappy and critical people in the crowd who will find fault with you no matter what you do. This is because they are too self-critical, and they apply the same standards to you. It’s best to ignore and avoid these angry and unhappy folks in this and all other aspects of your life.

I’ve seen articles lately in which purported business gurus are giving advice about how to “build wealth.” Their position is that we’ve been sold a bill of goods all these years with the “follow your heart” and “do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life” advice. They say you should choose work that makes you richest quickest. I couldn’t disagree more. In my career counseling work, I’ve often run into people whose parents told them “choose (fill in the

God bless middle managers—they have the hardest job on the planet. Essentially, they’re held accountable for part of a business, but oftentimes they don’t have enough power and control to get the results that are expected by their manager. For example, if you don’t have final hiring and firing authority for your team, then you’re hamstrung. You’re left managing a team that someone else hired without your approval, and then you’re held accountable for the results they get.

I read an article recently that reinforced the incredible power of organizational culture in creating sustained business success. The gist of the article was that a shark that grows up in a fish tank will grow to 8 inches, but that a shark that grows up in the ocean will grow to 8 feet. The business takeaway for us humans is that people will grow as “big” as the business culture they are in allows them to grow. If people are given adequate resources, encouragement, and oppo

When I first became interested in public speaking I went to a National Speakers Association introductory workshop. We moved from table to table to get advice from successful speakers. The advice that I remember most is the guy who said, “Go where you’re loved.” This advice sounds like basic common sense, but it’s easy to forget. If you’re in business long enough, it’s likely that some people will think you’re a hero. Unfortunately, others likely will think you’re a goat.

Happiness is the ultimate lagging indicator. It takes a lot of effort to have enough money here in the USA, so it’s understandable that many business leaders think that getting rich will make them happy. They’re often disappointed when they achieve this goal because it doesn’t feel as good as they thought it would. Don’t get me wrong, having plenty of money is a great source of happiness. In fact, it’s one of the four major sources of happiness. I help leaders double thei

Google says that “Ghosting is t he act of suddenly cutting off all communication with someone without any warning or explanation . The person who ghosts ignores all calls, texts, and social media messages, effectively vanishing from the other person's life. It is often used to avoid confrontation, leaving the recipient hurt, confused, and without closure.” I’ve been ghosted a couple of times in the last few years, and I would add “annoyed” to the definition above. It’s

Friday the 13 th is here again, and I always have a brief moment of fear that bad things may befall me out of nowhere. Why? Because some folks told me a long time ago that Friday the 13 th brought “bad luck.” Interesting, right? We humans are a highly adaptive species, and we can adjust to all kinds of environmental conditions. When you’re young and adults tell you that you should be afraid of something, it seems adaptive to listen to them and act on that information. H

Having an effective organizational design is a very important part of scaling up your business. Knowing who is accountable for what is paramount in reducing ambiguity and conflict and in achieving that exciting vision of the future that you have. A traditional hierarchical organizational design works best for most businesses. I’m not a big fan of matrix style organizational designs because they introduce too much ambiguity regarding who’s accountable for what. You can’t hol

I don’t believe that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Instead, my experience has been that scarcity is the root of all evil. For starters, I’m not sure that the “good” and “evil” labels are very helpful in being successful and happy. My thinking is that people are either behaving in such a way that they’re creating more happiness or less happiness in the world. People share what they have. Happy people spread happiness, and unhappy people spread unhappiness.

I help leaders decide who to add to their teams. We begin by creating an ideal profile of success for the role, and then we match against the profile as we assess candidates. One of the predictors we consider is risk tolerance—yes, just like in financial investment strategy. Overall, we look at three different levels of risk tolerance: CONTROL FREAKS: If you look in the dictionary under “control freak” you’ll see a picture of me. 😊 I know what I want and have a pretty go

It’s true. I’ve sometimes heard it said that I’m almost always happy and positive, but this isn’t my natural state. Because of my early experiences I’m a natural pessimist who was programmed to wait for the other painful shoe to drop. My life script originally was written as an epic tragedy. Instead, to paraphrase Jimmy Buffett, some of it’s tragic, but most of it’s magic, and I’ve had a good life all the way. How? As I said in my book, it mostly depends on what movie you

Nope. Nor are they intrinsically good. People are just people. They just want to feel good more often than they feel bad, i.e., be happy, so they’re going to maximize their happiness within the options provided by the environment they’re in. As a business leader, why do you care? Because as Peter Drucker purportedly said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This is great news, because this means that you can create and enforce core values (how we do things around here) a

In the grand scheme of things, simpler is better. For example, in strategic planning increased complexity in a plan results in more opportunities for miscommunication and “pilot error” in implementing the plan. The main reason for this is that we humans can only hold around seven pieces of information in our minds at any one time. Sure, there may be a great deal of complexity in the calculations that underpin your strategic plan, but at the end of the day humans will be in