Leadership

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Brian McDonald, President of MOR Associates.  Brian may be reached at [email protected].] During the past three weeks we at MOR have had the opportunity to hear from more than 500 leaders across higher education on the lessons learned from these eventful last eight weeks. This was an extraordinary time when universities […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is by Rick Fredericks, MOR Associates Program Leader and Leadership Coach.  Rick may be reached at [email protected]] It is not news that MOR will push you to adopt beneficial practices.  I am honoring this quest personally by building a stay at home practice.  This makes sense considering my unholy trinity of risk factors: […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Jim Bruce, Senior Fellow and Executive Coach at MOR Associates. He previously was Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Vice President for Information Systems and CIO at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He may be reached at [email protected].] Tuesday Readings for the past four weeks have focused on how we can […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Bill Hogue, MOR Associates Leadership Coach, Former CIO at University of South Carolina. Bill may be reached at [email protected].] Anyone who has ever attended a MOR workshop can instantly conjure a mental image of MOR’s world famous table-top name tents.  Maybe you can picture yours even as you read this sentence. […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Sean McDonald, Vice-President of MOR Associates. Sean may be reached at [email protected].] Last week when we wrote about leadership during this time we also asked you to share your most pressing leadership challenges. We appreciate the many responses we got and will be using these inputs to influence near term Tuesday […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Brian McDonald, President of MOR Associates.  Brian may be reached at [email protected].] During this current health crisis it may be helpful to take a few minutes to step back and think about the leadership challenges and responsibilities that are inherent in this increasing critical threat. Before you begin this, it […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Sarah J. Buszka, Critical Infrastructure Service Lead, University of Wisconsin – Madison.  She is a current participant in the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) MOR Leaders Program.  Sarah may be reached at [email protected].]   In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth successfully proves that effort […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is by Dr. David Sweetman, MOR Associates Leadership Coach and Consultant.  David may be reached at [email protected].] In my experience coaching, teaching, and leading, one of the greatest limits to our potential are self-defeating assumptions.  In the words of the great automotive pioneer Henry Ford, Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re […]

A Tribute to Jan and Growing Outside Your Comfort Zone [Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Laura Patterson, Leadership Coach and Consultant at MOR Associates.  She previously was CIO at the University of Michigan. Laura may be reached at [email protected].]   I recently received word that a friend, Jan, had passed away. Jan was a special […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading, is written by Brian McDonald, President of MOR Associates.] For the last fifteen years Jim Bruce has been endeavoring to share his wisdom and insights from across the leadership landscape with all of us through these Tuesday Readings. It has been a terrific way for Jim to read, reflect and synthesize the […]

… to be truly effective, you need to be!   Bill Taylor, Robert J. Smith Professor of Accountancy at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business and an expert on subjective performance evaluation, has said it this way: “… I’m convinced that if you truly want people to elevate their performance, you have first to […]

Recently on TV, I was attracted to a Cascade dishwasher detergent commercial featuring child actress Sierra Richards, who seeing her “mother” rinse off the dishes before putting them in the open dishwasher asks, “just what does the dishwasher do?” This question is an example of thinking critically about what the “mother” in the commercial was doing. […]

… they surround us   No matter where you look, you will find both unwritten and written rules – rules at work, rules that are personal to you, rules for your family, rules about your social interactions, rules at home, rules everywhere. Some are “written” by others including your organization, and many, likely the majority, by […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Monika R. Dressler. Director of Academic Technologies, in the LSA Technology Services group at the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She is an alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. Her essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. [Monika may be reached at […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a response by Dr. Nick Dedeke, Executive Professor of Supply Chain and Information Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA to the recent Tuesday Readings on “luck.” [Nick may be reached at [email protected].] Recent Tuesday Readings have prompted me to reflect on the subject of good luck. Good luck is a phenomenon […]

…Helpful thoughts for the next steps in your life’s journey   Every year, beginning near the end of May and continuing into early June, there is a flurry of ritual activity at this country’s educational institutions. In the U.S., there are over 4,200 degree granting colleges and universities and over 20,500 high schools who each […]

Several times over the past few years, the Tuesday Reading has focused on biases: Biased? We all are. Bias — If you have a brain, you’re biased. Mitigating Bias — When hiring staff. Train Your Brain — To help you avoid your biases. Today, we continue with this general theme focusing on the unconscious nature of many […]

… Let it go. “Holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to be hurt by it.”                                                              —— Mark Goulston, M.D. author […]

Most, dare I say all, of us, don’t do and haven’t done, much thinking about thinking. In fact, we may have never stopped to think about our thinking.   So, what is thinking anyway?   The Oxford English Dictionary defines thinking as the “process of considering or reasoning about something.” Merriam-Webster, defines it as the “action of one’s mind […]

Ever have the fear that someone is always watching you, just waiting for you to foul-up?   Michael Gervais, psychologist and co-founder of Compete to Create, a high performance mindset training course, wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review essay “How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You,”1 that our “fear of other people’s […]