Not all effective accountants, operations managers, financial analysts, etc. are wired the same. “It says I should be a forest ranger.” My introverted friend and I just received the reports from our guidance counselor’s career assessment test, and he was disappointed. His dream was to drive in the Indianapolis 500, and the race car driver … Read More
Three Ways to Respond When Your Meeting is Hijacked by a Righteous Underminer
Three hours into a strategy session, we were making significant progress. Excitement grew as the team envisioned what is possible. After a couple of cups of coffee in the morning and a diet coke for lunch, I excused myself and passed the marker to the woman on my right. Little did I know that my meeting … Read More
Your Mental Model Influences How You Handle Change, Uncertainty – and Your Job Performance
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Due to innovation and disruptions caused by technology, some have gone so far as to say the pace of change is accelerating. Whether constant or accelerating, change leads to uncertainty, and uncertainty can feel, pardon the clinical jargon, “icky.” Uncertainty produces anxiety, … Read More
Advice Culture can Keep your Company from Sailing into Hurricanes or Blocking Canals
For six days, the world’s eyes were on the Ever Given, the container ship stuck between the banks of the Suez Canal. Although a unique news story, maritime disasters are more typical than most of us realize. According to the insurer Allianz, 41 large ships were lost in 2019 and 46 in 2018. Over the … Read More
The Fall of Trust
Stephen M. R. Covey claimed in his book, The Speed of Trust, that trust is “the one thing that changes everything” – if removed, it can destroy the most thriving economy, the most powerful government, the most successful business, and the most influential leadership. Business Replaced Government as Most Trusted Institution For 20 years, Edelman … Read More
The Core of a True Leader
In the hope of figuring out how to treat families, one of the most innovative and iconoclastic psychologists, Murray Bowen, discovered the core of a leader a decade before anyone mentioned emotional intelligence. As technology has given us greater access to how the brain functions, scientists have found even more support for this theory. In … Read More
Heroes Cannot be Leaders
–While in the role of a hero, one cannot be a leader; while in the role of a leader, one makes heroes of others.– In a society where leaders and heroes are revered, the above statement may startle you. However, the term heroic leader is an oxymoron. In 2020, the Philadelphia newspapers referred to football … Read More
Are High Scores of Self- Deception on Pre-Hire Assessments More Common Among Young People?
Are your Twenty-Something Employees Full of $%^& I received a call from a client asking if there was something wrong with PsybilⓇ, our assessment system. He had just assessed a set of candidates and 7 of the 8 had self-deception scores higher than the 80th percentile. After making sure our system was working, I called … Read More
Solve Problems, Make Inspired Decisions by Understanding your Thinking Biases
It’s astonishing how many smart business leaders struggle with solving problems. We don’t mean these leaders are indecisive or complacent — far from it. In fact, in some cases, leaders make decisions too quickly, with an incomplete data set and/or inaccurate assumptions; in other cases they hesitate to decide, lacking a clear decision-making process. Just … Read More