Team

We are born problem solvers!  From the moment you wake in the morning until you are fast asleep at night, you are at the ready, just waiting for the next problem to arise. Now, some of the problems are simple and repetitive, like, for example, what do I do when the alarm goes off signaling […]

A few years ago, Charles Duhigg, who you likely know through his earlier book The Power of Habit, was interviewing people at exceptionally productive companies for his 2016 book Smarter Faster Better:  The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.”  As he did this, he often asked for help in solving a family problem:  […]

Most of us firmly believe that there is a linear relationship between the hours we work and the productive results that we generate, at least to the point of sheer physical exhaustion.  Research has begun to show, however, that it’s more complicated than that.  That, in fact, the stressors that keep us from focusing and […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, The Measurement of a Leader, is an essay by Jeff Sherrill, Assistant Director for Information Technology, College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.  The essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. Last year, I read the memoirs of Union General and later President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant.  I was really […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Don’t Get Gun Shy”, is an essay by Lizz Duke, Senior Systems Analyst and member of the ServiceLink Team at NYU.  The essay first appeared as a program reflection in November 2016.   I got my first job as a teenager at the Pathmark supermarket near my house.  I started there as a […]

Civility and Respect?  You might be thinking, why a Tuesday Reading on this subject?   I would have thought so too until several essays by Catherine Porath crossed my desk.  Porath has studied civility and respect for over two decades.  Her studies have clearly demonstrated that civility and being respectful pay off.  She writes:  “It […]

I grew up in a home where apologizing for my wrong actions, for example, taking and hiding my brother’s toys, was required.  All that it took to trigger the apology was a stern look from my Mother.  As I got older and didn’t have the prompt from my Mother, I want to believe that I […]

As the leadership communities grow across our client organizations, we’ve witnessed several effective approaches in leading other leaders.  We’d like to share a few, as we are also aware that they can be quite different from those that helped us earlier in our careers.  For each approach, we have included practices that you can work […]

Always on the Stage We say over and over again “Leaders are always on the stage.”  Why?  Because someone is always watching.  Someone is always taking the leader’s behavior to inform their impression of her or him and as an example of how to behave.  Good or bad, it’s OK.  We think, if it works […]

Do you have one? We’ve all encountered them.  The one, or two, or more bad apples on our teams who have little or nothing positive to say about anything, regularly upset and disrupt others, and make work miserable for everyone.  Dylan Minor, a faculty member at the Kellogg School of Management notes that there is a […]