Strategy

I am constantly looking for new leadership lessons. When I am a student or trainee, I observe how the instructor structures the class, presents information, and keeps the room engaged. As a sports fan, I pay attention to how a coach organizes the team, creates energy toward a shared goal, and adapts to change. Over […]

What did I do and learn?   What do I plan to do? A few days ago, we turned over the last page of our 2015 calendars to find the first day of 2016.  And, for many of us, soon after our New Year’s celebrations were over, we began to think about our resolutions for 2016.  […]

A Leadership Reflection Last week I attended two retirement parties. As I reflected about them afterwards, there were a few key points that they made during their speeches that I would like to share with the group. Trust is so important.  Establishing an environment of trust-based relationships encourages creativity, self initiative, and incredible productivity fostered by […]

In previous Tuesday Readings we have focused on the importance of planning, on being intentional about how we use our time, and on the importance of regularly moving items from our one To Do list to our calendar. As good as a deliberate planning practice is, it can often leave us frustrated at the end of the day […]

In a recent essay, “Beyond Bias,” which is today’s Tuesday Reading, Heidi Grant Halvorson and David Rock wrote:   “Biases are nonconscious drivers – cognitive quirks – that influence how people see the world.  They appear to be universal in most of humanity, perhaps hardwired into the brain as part of our genetic or cultural heritage, […]

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, traditionally a day of giving thanks for the harvest (that provides our food) and for the preceding year.  History and tradition suggest that this celebration goes back in the United States at least to a 1621 feast in the Plymouth Colony celebrating a good harvest in the Colony’s first […]

I would like to share my personal reflective journey to date, from the beginning.  I was invited to attend the MOR Advanced Leadership Program by my CIO at the beginning of the summer.  As one of the newest members of the OIT management/leadership team I immediately had two scenarios go through my mind. I haven’t been […]

My take on an application of a topic from our first session. The Unicorn Meeting Throughout my professional career I’ve always wondered when I would catch a glimpse of the elusive Unicorn Meeting (the one ran with reason, direction, poise and purpose that you can only hope to walk into). Perhaps I would be the […]

We all attend too many meetings.  Some are initiated by others and we attend to contribute.  And some are our meetings, designed to further our team’s work.  Some of them are productive and some are not.  And, everyone I’ve talked to yearns for fewer of them. This week’s Tuesday Reading is drawn from Amy Gallo’s essay […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, I Sit Too Much, should actually be titled “I Sit Too Much and So Do You.” Researchers agree that we all sit far too much, about 10 hours per day – hours at the desk, focused on the computer screen, reading and writing emails, working on reports, eating lunch, in meetings, in […]