In his 1895 Cotton States Exposition address, Civil Rights leader Booker T. Washington, urged his followers to “Cast down your bucket where you are.” He challenged those listening (and now us all) to focus on the things we could change in our own lives and the world. He knew that the only way to perpetuate progress in a world full of inequities and injustices was to throw your individual efforts and energy into working…
The poet Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” A friend of mine referred to this as our Ministry of Availability. The moments in life when the best thing we can do is dive down into the abyss with someone who is struggling and just “be” with them. Not in words, but in true presence….
When I was a kid, the glass Heinz 57 ketchup bottles were on every table in almost every restaurant you walked into. It was always such a pain to get the ketchup to come out of the bottle. So, everybody had their own theory on how to do it best. Some subscribed to the “shake the bottle like mad” theory. Others went with the “smack the bottom of the bottle” style. Many believed there…
In my opinion, the term “Leadership” has been hijacked over the years. The word has become so commonplace and used in so many general ways that its definition is often lost. In fact, when I walk into speak to a team or organization of any kind, I often get 50 different descriptions of what it means to be a leader. In the early days, leadership was often described as the authority figure who sat at…
I’m just back from Las Vegas and it was a tremendous experience speaking at the National Annual Conference for the Society for Human Resource Management (#SHRM15)! Over 15,500 HR leaders from around the world came together to learn, grow and discover. It was an honor and joy to meet all of the #SHRM15 attendees and to feel the fantastic response that I received from my interactive speech titled 21st Century Leadership: Growing An Engaged Culture. 6 quick reminders…
In many cases, it’s easier to disengage than to engage. It’s often easier to find an excuse to not do something than to make the commitment to do it. It’s easier to shift blame than exercise accountability. It’s easier to protect ourselves than to put ourselves out there. Because of that reality, we often just hover at the status quo. We stay where it is comfortable. We cling to our routines. We live within our comfort…
We have never lived in more distracting times in the history of the world than we do now. We have never been more “busy”, distracted or scattered on a day-to-day basis. A recent Harvard Business Review study revealed that the “modern worker today” shifts their focus and attention between tasks around 300-500 times on an average day. It has never been more important to see things clearly, and purposefully. The most effective individual leaders or…
Every day there are teams and organizations in search of the right keynote speaker for their upcoming event. The planning team knows that the right keynote speaker can either wow the crowd and turn the whole day into a huge success or miss the mark and make it hard for the rest of the event to recover. In some situations, even the best food, venue and party favors can’t overcome a presentation that misses the…
Do you know the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat? Just a couple of leadership lessons, really. A thermometer reads the temperature in a room. If it’s hot in the room, it tells you it is hot in the room. If it is cold in the room, it tells you it’s cold. A thermometer tells you the temperature in the room. A thermostat regulates the temperature. It helps control the temperature in the room by making…
It’s easy to fall into Auto Pilot mode. You know, just going through the motions. You can easily get stuck in a rut, in your routine, in tasks, and in a state of feeling like every day is the same. Many organizations specialize in this type of daily grind. But, it’s not compelling. It’s not what we want. It’s not what we strive to be in the world. We don’t want to go through life in some…
