Articles

Employees who blame HR are uniformed. Leaders who blame HR are weak.

Titles tell everyone — the holder, the granter, and the observer — as much as you could ever expect from just a very few well-chosen words.

One of the best sources of new hires is ex-employees.

No, I don’t mean that person you just fired. I mean the people you wish hadn’t left.

The “great resignation” has shown that it wasn’t loyalty, it was stickiness.

A friend told me: Success covers a lot of sins, but when success fades, it reveals like a receding tide.

The future of transportation looks rosy, filled with technical marvels of your imagination. Unless of course, you’re a car company.

My number one rule for the workplace is: no surprises.

A great leader knows what DOESN’T matter. Be ruthless in discarding the variables that don’t matter.

Leadership isn’t a genetic trait like brown eyes. Leadership is a skill. All leaders learn how to do it.

The only way to improve or change the culture of an organization that you lead is by living it.

Smart leaders are often the calm ones, the ones who are slowing things down.

Words not lived speak the loudest.

• Quality is job one.
• Safety is our number one priority.
• Diversity is our strength.
• The customer always comes first.

They mean far worse than nothing if they are not lived.

Organizations don’t have values, people do.

People have personal values.

Organizations have priorities.

Most organizational values are useless.

Without contrast they are invisible.
Without edges they are unmeasurable.
Without order they are chaos.
Without use they are abandoned.

Any advice for a first-time manager? Sure, here are five important “don’ts”. 1) Don’t succumb to imposter syndrome Recently promoted managers often feel unworthy; question themselves or their abilities; wonder if they deserve it. It’s hard to be successful if you don’t believe you will be. The person who promoted […]

As the software world marks the 20th anniversary of the agile manifesto, it occurred to me that there is an entire generation of developers who know nothing but that world. They know little of the decades of work done prior, nor, it seems, can they imagine how any of it […]

Today, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, is a time for many to reflect on the deeper issues of life. I’m no different.

Publicly celebrating promotions, in a genuine way establishes genuine connections and can have a positive effect beyond just the celebrant.

What distinguishes a leader from a manager? When asked, many wax poetic about passion, and charisma, and vision. But how can you tell the difference in a more empirical way?

Do organizations bend and shape their cultures to match their target market? Or does the target market tend to favor organizations with cultures that match?

Working around truly smart people, real geniuses, can be invigorating. But we often defer to them too easily. Are smart people really right more often? Do they really get more hits, or do they just take more swings at the ball?

As your career progresses up in an organization the most overt change is the expansion of scope. Scope in time, and scope in organizational perspective. What you gain with more scope is an invaluable asset: context. And the most important thing you can do as a leader is to share that context.

Common wisdom is that the first promotion from individual contributor to leader is the hardest. But it’s the second promotion that is the true turning point in a leadership career.

The next killer app is the one that figures out how to effectively replicate the brainstorming / bulls**ting / hallway moment session virtually.