The Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog

Leading Thoughts for April 17, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

William Vanderbloemen on complaining:

“Complaining gives us a lot of positive reinforcement. It makes us think we’re smarter than the powers that be, and it helps us bond with a group. Ask anyone who is friends with their very first coworkers from decades ago. Did breakfast sandwiches in the cafeteria and half-day summer Fridays bind them? Or was it a common enemy and a mutual sense of injustice that they could vent to another about? But complaining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It has a negative impact on your brain and, not surprisingly, a negative impact on your company culture. It’s better to be a Solver.”

Source: Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest

II.

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter on using AI to enhance creativity:

“One of the foundations of creativity is being curious and asking questions like What if? Why not? And What else? Human beings are great at asking these types of questions. But unfortunately, we’re limited in our answers because of our experience, knowledge, and biases. Although AI has limitations because of its programming, it can be a terrific creative partner by encouraging our curiosity. With AI, we can ask more questions, get more answers, and bring more fun into the creative process. Many of us can probably relate to painful past experiences of staring at a whiteboard, trying to come up with new, divergent or original ideas. Well, Al can be of help in those situations. Used properly, it can be a great generator of initial ideas, which can help inspire creative thinking. Al can also answer questions and punch holes in an argument or a thesis. Fundamentally, it’s more fun and cognitively easier to ask questions than it is to come up with answers. AI can transform brainstorming sessions into “question-storming sessions,” which can be inherently more enjoyable and engaging and can ultimately produce a greater number of creative outcomes.”

Source: More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:59 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 10, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Eric Potterat on putting in the practice you need for success:

“Effort is perhaps both the easiest and hardest aspect of mindset to practice. Easy because you know what needs to be done: more practicing, more studying, more exercising, more time. Hard because: more work. For some people (and many high performers) hard work is innate. They keep at it naturally; they don’t have to make themselves do it. But most of us are what I like to call “human”: we have a limit. When we reach that fork in our day when we could spend an hour practicing that thing we care about or rot our brain watching viral videos or reality shows, too often we opt for the videos. We’ll practice tomorrow. We suffer from (or benefit from, depending on whether you are sitting comfortably on your couch or not) an intention-behavior gap. We intend to do something, but we don’t do it.”

Source: Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World's Top Performers

II.

Michael Pilarczyk on knowing what matters to you:

“There’s a reason behind every choice you make. There are reasons you decide to do or not do something, and those reasons chart your course. In other words, the meaning you assign to your thoughts determines your personality, your behavior, how you feel, how you react, and what you accomplish. Everything you do has a reason. There is a close relationship between your personal values and the choices you make. And this all directly affects your behavior.”

Source: Master Your Mindset: Live a Meaningful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:25 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 3, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard S. Tedlow on speaking truth to power:

“The fantasy that if you get rid of the messenger, you can render the message untrue is a powerful one.”

Source: Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face—and What to Do About It

II.

Todd Henry on the passion fallacy:

“Instead of asking ‘What would bring me enjoyment?’ which is how many people think about following their passion, we should instead ask ‘What work am I willing to suffer for today?’ Great work requires suffering for something beyond yourself. It’s created when you bend your life around a mission and spend yourself on something you deem worthy of your best effort. What is your worthwhile cause?”

Source: Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:18 PM
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Leading Thoughts for March 27, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Bob Rosen on uncertainty:

“Uncertainty can become our undoing if we are not open to what’s around the corner, whether new ideas and experiences or the latest resentments or disappointments. During a state of uncertainty, we must learn to be comfortable with being vulnerable. Although the idea may seem counterintuitive, vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable says you are willing to take risks, be an imperfect person, and accept reality, whatever it may be.”

Source: Detach: Ditch Your Baggage to Live a More Fulfilling Life

II.

Josh Linkner on walking and creativity:

“Researchers isolated walking from all other factors to determine the impact of strolling on creativity. The results: creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when the person was walking compared to sitting. Not .6 percent, not 6 percent, but 60 percent.”

Source: Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:26 PM
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Leading Thoughts for March 20, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Writer and theologian C.S. Lewis on what why small choices matter:

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”

Source: Mere Christianity

II.

George Mallory, a British mountaineer on the joy of climbing:

“People ask me, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is of no use.’ There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron… If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”

Source: Climbing Everest: The Complete Writings of George Mallory

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 13, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson on leading together:

“The dark truth of success is that if we make it all about ourselves, our own egos, our individual performance, it eventually breaks down. It won’t have staying power. Most of us have experienced the reality of bosses or corporate cultures that go it alone, pushing agendas on us rather than building with us. Startups know this feeling. People running full speed toward their dreams know this feeling. But it’s fleeting. It doesn’t last if it’s not built with others, co-created.”

Source: Brave Together: Lead by Design, Spark Creativity, and Shape the Future with the Power of Co-Creation

II.

Joel Kurtzman on leadership:

“The leader is not separate from the group he or she leads. Rather, the leader is the organization’s glue—the force that binds it together, sets its direction, and makes certain that the group functions as one. Good leaders are not outsiders who cheer on a group. They are part of that group, integrated deeply into its fabric and emotional life. Connecting with the group you lead means demonstrating you are part of the group, understand its challenges, can do its jobs, and can stand the pressure and the heat.”

Source: Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:21 PM
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Leading Thoughts for March 6, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Andrew Kakabadse, Nada Kakabadse, and Linda Davies on leading to learn:

“It is clear that successful leadership is never truly mastered as it is an organic service which must be ever refreshed and refined. The changing nature and demands of the follower and the changing nature and demands of the external environment mean that even once the leader has reached a point of maximum provision for their troops in their current state, they must put some serious planning into the next likely situation they will face. There is no rest. Learning to lead never stops and the truly successful, the truly great leader knows that they are leading to learn.”

Source: Leading for Success: The Seven Sides to Great Leaders

II.

Greg Satell on identifying a keystone change:

“To create real change, change that sticks and won’t be soon reversed, you need to identify a fundamental issue that encapsulates the value of the mission—a keystone change that is concrete and tangible, unites the efforts of multiple stakeholders, and paves the way for greater change. Revolutions don’t begin with a slogan—they begin with a cause.

“It is never enough to merely state grievances to challenge the status quo. To create meaningful change, you must put forward an affirmative vision for what you want the future to look like. You have to define an alternative that is actually better, not just for those who agree with you, but for the vast majority of those who will be affected by the change you seek. ”

Source: Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 27, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Craig Wright on the value of thinking opposite:

“The more a person can exploit the contradictions of life, the greater his or her potential for genius. Great artists, poets, playwrights, musicians, comedians, and moralists embed oppositional forces in their work for dramatic, and sometimes comic, effect. Brilliant scientists and mathematicians seemingly do not go in search of contradictions but are comfortable when they find them. Transformative entrepreneurs look for contrarian solutions. If you want to better understand an object or concept, conceive of the opposite.”

Source: The Hidden Habits of Genius: Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit—Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness

II.

Clay Scroggins on the key to simplifying:

“Find that one sentence that defines why you do the things you do, and it can have massive repercussions on your life moving forward. When you can clarify your why—and by that, I mean the answer to every ‘why do you do what you do’ question—you can start to live and lead effectively.”

Source: How to Lead in a World of Distraction: Four Simple Habits for Turning Down the Noise

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:01 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 20, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Farson on contradictions:

“Contradictory impulses to both succeed and fail can be found in every project, every work team, even every individual. Every management choice, Job offer, or new applicant can appear both appealing and unappealing. Every deal is both good and bad. That is why leadership is essentially the management of dilemmas, and why tolerance for ambiguity—coping with contradictions—is essential for leaders, and why appreciating the coexistence of opposites is crucial to the development of a different way of thinking. It is often the most valuable service one can offer an organization. But it requires nontraditional thinking.

Deeply held ideologies and cultural values, tunnel vision, selective perception, deference to the judgment of others—these are all enemies in our efforts to see what is really going on.”

Source: Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership

II.

Steven B. Sample on thinking gray:

“The leader whose thinking is constrained within well-worn ruts, who is completely governed by his established passions and prejudices, who is incapable of thinking either gray or free, and who can’t even appropriate the creative imagination and fresh ideas of those around him, is as anachronistic and ineffective as the dinosaur. He may, by dint of circumstances, remain in power, but his followers would almost certainly be better off without him.”

Source: The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 13, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Michael Doctoroff on conflict:

“Conflicts, when properly controlled and resolved, can be a powerful tool for developing creative business plans and objectives. Without conflict, the organization would remain in a happy state of inactivity.

In a way, business is built on conflict. Conflict, you might say, is the mother of change. You see a problem and do something to remove it. After it has been eliminated, conditions are no longer the same. Through change, the organization strengthens itself and restores harmony within itself and with its environment. We need to make sure that we have mechanisms for resolving such conflicts in a fruitful way. This can only be achieved by improving communications throughout the organization.”

Source: Synergistic Management: Creating the Climate for Superior Performance

II.

Robert Shaw on blindspots:

“Blindspots are not simply problems to be identified and fixed. Managing blindspots is learning to accept them as inevitable and, in some respects, positive because they force you to remain vigilant. Your weaknesses and the threats you face are ever-present, and the greatest risk is believing otherwise. That is, knowing you have blindspots forces you to look more carefully and deeply at your own behavior and situation. In this regard, they both threaten and protect.”

Source: Leadership Blindspots: How Successful Leaders Identify and Overcome the Weaknesses That Matter

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:16 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 6, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jonah Sachs on the expert’s trap:

“While expertise can make us enormously efficient at playing an established game, it can also make us slower to realize when the game has changed and less able to respond to those changes. Our expert’s mind, so used to moving quickly and efficiently, tries to fit new information into old boxes so it can use its rapid processing power. ‘Oh, that’s just a new flavor of an old problem,’ our expert brain says. Too often it’s not. After all, most of the problems we face in a world of rapid change have little in common with a two-dimensional chessboard with rules that never change.”

Source: Unsafe Thinking: How to be Nimble and Bold When You Need It Most

II.

Robert Pirsig on egotistical endeavors:

“When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do it’s a hollow victory. In order to sustain the victory you have to prove your self again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:37 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 30, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Retired Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney on empathy:

“A lack of empathy in any leader obviously is a huge detriment huge detriment. But too much empathy can be just as damaging. It’s hard to be productive if you’re functioning at the whim of other people’s emotions. Empathy is an invaluable tool, so long as it is properly calibrated.”

Source: The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance

II.

Nikos Mourkogiannis on purpose:

“Purpose is preparation for doing what is right and what is worthwhile. As such it creates a sense of obligation. But this obligation is not a weight or a drag in any way—it’s a way of knowing what you can and can’t do. Because Purpose provides certainty, it also provides confidence. All of that comes together to contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage. ‘Do the right thing and do well’—a new way of saying ‘Do well by doing good.’”

Source: Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:32 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 23, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Coach Phil Jackson on compassion:

“Compassion for all beings—not least of all oneself—is the key to breaking down barriers among people. Now, ‘compassion’ is a word not often bandied about in locker rooms. But I’ve found that a few kind, thoughtful words can have a strong transformative effect on relationships, even with the toughest men on the team.” (Blog Post)

Source: Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

II.

Coach Tony Dungy on putting people first:

“Instead of asking, how can I lead my company, my team, or my family to a higher level of success? We should be asking ourselves, how do others around me flourish as a result of my leadership? Do they flourish at all? How does my leadership, my involvement in their lives—in whatever setting we’re in—have a positive and lasting influence and impact on them?”

Source: The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 16, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Joel Kurtzman on leadership:

“The leader is not separate from the group he or she leads. Rather, the leader is the organization’s glue—the force that binds it together, sets its direction, and makes certain that the group functions as one. Good leaders are not outsiders who cheer on a group. They are part of that group, integrated deeply into its fabric and emotional life. Connecting with the group you lead means demonstrating you are part of the group, understand its challenges, can do its jobs, and can stand the pressure and the heat.”

Source: Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary

II.

Greg Satell on identifying a keystone change:

“To create real change, change that sticks and won’t be soon reversed, you need to identify a fundamental issue that encapsulates the value of the mission—a keystone change that is concrete and tangible, unites the efforts of multiple stakeholders, and paves the way for greater change. Revolutions don’t begin with a slogan—they begin with a cause.

“It is never enough to merely state grievances to challenge the status quo. To create meaningful change, you must put forward an affirmative vision for what you want the future to look like. You have to define an alternative that is actually better, not just for those who agree with you, but for the vast majority of those who will be affected by the change you seek.”

Source: Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:14 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 9, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jack Trout on being a doer:

“The best leaders know that direction alone is no longer enough. The best leaders are storytellers, cheerleaders, and facilitators. They reinforce their sense of direction or vision with words and action.”

Source: The Power of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right

II.

Jack Welch on simplicity:

“For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple. Insecure managers create complexity. Real leaders don’t need clutter. People must have the self-confidence to be clear, precise, to be sure that every person in their organization—highest to lowest—understands what the business is to achieve. But it’s not easy. You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple-minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.”

Source: Noel Tichy and Ram Charan: Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch, Harvard Business Review

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 2, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brian Tracy on zero-based thinking:

“To simplify your life, zero-based thinking is one of the most powerful strategies you can learn and apply on a regular basis. Here’s how it works. Ask yourself, ‘Is there anything I am doing right now that, knowing what I now know, I wouldn’t get into again if I were starting over today?’”

Source: Focal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals

II.

Donald Miller on creating meaning:

“We build lives of meaning by stating an ambition, by enduring challenges, and by sharing our lives with others. The single characteristic that sets heroes apart is that they are willing to accept a challenge that will ultimately transform them. Heroes take action, which is why they are so good at experiencing meaning.”

Source: Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:15 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 26, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Joe Davis on engaging the skeptics:

“Have you ever been in a room, presenting an idea for change, and someone says, ‘Oh, that will never work’? Or you’ve solicited feedback as you work through your options, and you hear the ‘No, we cannot do that’? Your instinct might be to be defensive or just ignore them, but their perspective and experience, if you can embrace it, will strengthen your position. Asking for more information about why they feel the way they do, and then listening carefully to what they say, can be the best course of action.”

Source: The Generous Leader: 7 Ways to Give of Yourself for Everyone’s Gain

II.

Behnam Tabrizi on the challenge to breaking organizational inertia:

“Besides the inertia of size and complexity, human nature is the main obstacle to change. People are conditioned to give away their own power. From being entirely dependent as infants, to partially dependent as we grow into adulthood, we are tempted to continue that pattern. We often abdicate our own thinking to the books we read and the lectures we hear; we leave the dictates of morality to religious leaders and our diet to doctors. Essentially, we’re too afraid to think for ourselves. In the workplace, we’re comfortable ceding our power to the bureaucratic hierarchy so we can settle into a predictable, stable set of routines and tasks.”

Source: Going on Offense: A Leader’s Playbook for Perpetual Innovation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:42 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 19, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nido Qubein on becoming a transformational leader:

“Our team knows that the highest order of leadership is to tell the truth. Yet, that is just the beginning. You consciously and intentionally have to bring your business, social, spiritual, and family lives together; each plays a part in who you are as a leader. When you do, your life is like a beautiful song. Its harmony influences others, it can move people, and anyone looking at you will know what kind of person you really are.”

Source: Extraordinary Transformation: An Entrepreneurial Blueprint for Leaders Who Seek Transformational Growth in Any Organization Proven Lessons on How a ... and Inspired the Next Generation of Leaders

II.

Manu Kapur on learning and teaching actionable knowledge:

“Experts see different things than novices. Novices tend to see superficial features, but experts see what is essential, the deep structure and critical features. It is seeing the deep structure that leads to understanding and powerful learning. When learning something new, it is much too easy to find the path of least resistance. It is most natural to seek the easy way out. However, making learning easy does not always ease learning. If not intentionally designed to leverage failure in the initial stages, learning tends to be shallow and inflexible. But with it, learning is deep, flexible, and adaptive. Productive Failure suggests that making initial learning more difficult and challenging, where you may struggle and even fail to solve a problem or perform a task, can be beneficial learning.”

Source: Productive Failure: Unlocking Deeper Learning Through the Science of Failing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:11 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 12, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Terence Mauri on AI and leadership:

“It’s time to question ways of leading that diminish what makes us human. A failure to reimagine how we work is a failure of leadership.

“The more digital we become, the more human we need to be. The reimagination of mindsets, culture, and capabilities in sync with the rise of AI may be the leadership imperative of the twenty-first century.”

Source: The Upside of Disruption: The Path to Leading and Thriving in the Unknown

II.

Morgan Housel on taking the good with the bad:

“People who think about the world in unique ways you like almost certainly think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.”

Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:25 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 5, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Marshall Goldsmith on community:

“You may think of yourself as a wholly self-made rugged individualist who takes responsibility for choices made, never whines ‘It’s not fair!’ and always rejects the role of victim or martyr. I’ve met admirable people who embody all these traits, but one: None of them believes they are wholly self-made. They know that an earned life cannot be achieved in isolation. It only thrives within a community.”

Source: The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment

II.

Robert Littell on the shortest distance between two points:

“[The assumption] that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, which you and I, old boy, in our infinite wisdom, know to be a dodgy proposition. Me, I am orthodox anti-Euclidean. There simply is no short distance between two points. There’s only a meander.”

Source: Character in The Company

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:58 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 28, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Environmental scientist Donella Meadows on nonmaterial needs:

“People don’t need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don’t need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth.

“Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings. A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, world require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment.”

Source: The Limits to Growth (Read Online)

II.

Architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller on creating change:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Source: As quoted in Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:33 PM
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Leading Thoughts for November 21, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Creator of Mad Men Matthew Weiner on feedback:

“When someone rejects your work, register the fact that they don’t like it, but don’t listen to the reason why. People feel that they have to say something, and they often give a capricious justification to keep from hurting your feelings. For example, someone might say, ‘I don’t like your movie because it’s in black-and-white.’ You think, Damn it. If I had made it in color, I could have sold it. That’s probably not true. Now, if William Goldman or Mike Nichols reads your work and suggests you do X to it, you might want to listen, but if you alter your work for every rejection, you’ll end up running in all different directions trying to please an imaginary audience. It can be damaging and destructive.”

Source: Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal

II.

Noel M. Tichy on the need to produce leaders at all levels:

“Successful leaders add value. No matter what level or what type of organization, the true measure of a leader is whether he or she has made the assets under their control more valuable today than they were yesterday. A leader is given stewardship over assets, in the form of people, capital, information, and technology. Their job is to make them more valuable and to keep making them more valuable into the future.”

Source: The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 14, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Josh Axe on building communities of greatness:

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are better off alone or that the ‘friends’ you have on social media are enough to complete your community. Instead of simply casting a wide net, go deep with your relationships. Don’t settle for having only online social media conversations or waving hi and bye to people in the school car line. Invest in communities of greatness, find a mentor, and be a mentor. We can only become who we are meant to be through the people who surround, come alongside, lead, abd follow us. Don’t just think about who you can become. Think of who your community can become.”

Source: Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be

II.

Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia on the ripple effect of caring:

“When so many people go home each night feeling not valued, it is no surprise that we see so much conflict in families and our communities today. We in business are creating that problem because we see people as objects for our success and not as precious human beings. If we send Steve home feeling better about himself and he, therefore has a better relationship with his wife, his kids are going to see the model behavior of their parents, and we’re going to raise happier, thriving children. This is how we can start to heal our brokenness: sending people home as better spouses, parents, children, friends, and citizens of their communities.”

Source: Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:47 PM
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Leading Thoughts for November 7, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Warren Bennis on consensus decision-making:

“Emphasis on harmony does not serve organizations particularly well. Unanimity leads rather quickly to stagnation, which, in turn, invites change by nonevolutionary means. The fact that the organizational deviant, the individual who ‘sees’ things differently, may be the institution’s vital and only link with, for lack of a better term, some new, more apt paradigm does not make the organization value him any more. Most organizations would rather risk obsolescence than make room for the non-conformists in their midst.”

Source: Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues

II.

Peter Drucker on manners:

“It is a Law of Nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. Two human beings in contact with each other therefore always create friction. And then manners are the lubricating oil that enables these moving bodies to work together, whether they like each other or not—simple things like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and knowing a person's birthday or name, remembering to ask after the person's family. If the analysis shows that brilliant work fails again and again as soon as it requires cooperation by others, it probably indicates lack of courtesy, that is, of manners.”

Source: Management Challenges for the 21st Century

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:33 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 31, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Doug Hirschhorn on gaining a competitive advantage:

“Gaining a competitive advantage is like having a two-edged sword, and you need to keep both of them sharp. One edge is internal—knowing what unique skills you bring to the table. The other is external and comes from gathering knowledge that makes it more likely you’ll succeed.”

Source: 8 Ways to Great: Peak Performance on the Job and in Your Life

II.

Michael Bungay Stanier on the Advice Monster:

“We’ve all got a deeply ingrained habit of slipping into the advice-giver/expert/answer-it/solve-it/fix-it mode. We call this urge the Advice Monster. You have the best of intentions to stay curious and ask a few good questions. But in the moment, just as you are moving to that better way of working, the Advice Monster leaps out of the darkness and hijacks the conversation. Before you realize what’s happening, your mind is turned towards finding The Answer and you’re leaping in to offer ideas, suggestions, and recommended ways forward. In short, even though we don’t really know what the issue is or what’s going on for the person, we’re quite sure we’ve got the answer they need.”

Source: The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:30 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 24, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Errol Doebler on being in the moment:

“Emotions are simply a record of the past. We spend an inordinate amount of time on our negative emotions of the past, and, as such, we’ve become neurochemically addicted to them. Because of this addiction, we are bringing the past into the present. We now extrapolate that emotion into the future. We already know how we are going to feel in the future because we are bringing it forward from our past emotions. If you are not in the present moment, you are somewhere else. That somewhere else is the past you’ve become addicted to and the future you’ve become addicted to based on the past you can’t let go of. This a scary proposition.”

Source: Ice Cold Leader: Leading from the Inside Out

II.

Behnam Tabrizi on processes:

“Processes are just a means to an end, often used to make management scalable. But as companies become large and managers become remote serving customers, processes become an end to themselves, often so complicated that most people don’t know how to navigate beyond them. They compromise on customer service in order to meet the requirements of the process. They focus on inputs, not outputs, and lose sight of the connection.”

Source: Going on Offense: A Leader’s Playbook for Perpetual Innovation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:19 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 17, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Alden Mills on attitude:

“Your attitude is one of the single most important things you can control, and if you are not careful, you will let others influence and sometimes even control your attitude for you. The reason attitude is so critical to your success is that it directly influences how you communicate, collaborate, and contribute. People experience you through your attitude. Your attitude drives your actions and how people act toward you.”

Source: Unstoppable Mindset: How to Use What You Have to Get What You Want

II.

Sam Chand on taking responsibility:

“So, what keeps people from getting to a higher level of leadership? The answer is their inability to accept higher levels of responsibility. Leadership has privileges, but those privileges come with a weighty obligation. A leader’s responsibilities include being a good role model, training others, keeping a good attitude, saying, ‘I will go first,’ volunteering for things outside your purview, being on time, rising with courageous, faith-filled affirmation, holding up your primary leader’s arms, and giving your best. Every day that you show up as a leader you bring a higher level of responsibility. And guess what happens? Whatever you sow, you’ll reap.”

Source: 52 Tuesdays With Sam Chand: Powerful Insights to Inspire Your Leadership Journey

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:24 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 10, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Erwin McManus on the power of words :

“There isn’t a single one of us that has escaped the power of the words spoken into our lives. If words do not have a magical power, they certainly have a metaphysical power. Within our words, we hold the power of life and death. The first words spoken in the book of Genesis are, ‘Let there be light.’ We, too, seem to have the power to create darkness or light. If not in the world around us, certainly in the world within us. It may not be an overstatement to say that we are the sum total of the words that have been spoken into us and that we have allowed to define us.”

Source: The Seven Frequencies of Communication: The Hidden Language of Human Connection

II.

Elliott Parker on building resilience:

“Resilience is the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure. Resilience is developed and maintained through learning, optionality, and redundancy. Resilience is never the result of top-down, hierarchical management. It is always the result of organic, messy experimentation. Resilience requires a certain degree of inefficiency, randomness, and exploration.”

Source: The Illusion of Innovation: Escape "Efficiency" and Unleash Radical Progress

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 3, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brian Solis on keeping an open mind:

“I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered anyone who self-identifies as ‘close-minded.’ But the fact is, our minds have been built to resist new information, especially when it refutes our prior experience or goes against our beliefs. We tend to surround ourselves with people like us, which fortifies our beliefs. When we’re surrounded by similar beliefs, we’re rarely challenged. Opening our minds up is also hard because it is a form of shifting our identity. When we engage in questioning what we’ve learned from our experiences and interrogating our beliefs, we can feel unmoored. Disruption is inevitable. Either we can let it challenge our experiences and beliefs and inspire us to reshape them or we can dig in and fight from our comfort zones.”

Source: Mindshift: Ignite Change, Inspire Action, and Innovate for a Better Tomorrow

II.

Brad Stulberg developing rugged yet flexible boundaries:

“If you rigidly dig in, hoping to stay the same and trying to insulate yourself from change, then you run the risk of falling apart. But if you are fluid without any boundaries or direction, then it can become quite confusing as to who you even are. When you feel the ground shifting underneath you, when you don’t know your next move, you can ask yourself, How might I move in the direction of may core values? Ruggedness without flexibility is rigidity; flexibility without ruggedness is instability. Only organizations that deliberately cultivate their rugged boundaries and then flexibly apply them have a shot at prospering over the long haul.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 26, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Kevin Roberts on the future of business:

“Even the best teams lose. In business, the best families don’t. A family will beat a team, a tribe, an institution, a community time after time. If you feel like a family and play like a team, your organization will operate at peak performance. I learned this working at Procter & Gamble. Instead of a blame culture, it was all about driving the idea forward together.

“Most people think that family is too soft as an operating idea for business. Family is the toughest operating unit out there. Families are demanding yet caring. This is what makes them special.

“There are no filters. Families are both stable and chaotic. There is tension and resilience. Families constantly evolve. Families balance past, present, and future. In businesses that operate as family, people can be their best, feel secure and safe, and belong to something special. Sharing Is sacrosanct. Dreams are shared in the family though sayings, feelings, belongings, and doings.

“Family is a metaphor for the future of business.”

Source: 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World

II.

John Mangieri and Cathy Block on the value of self-knowledge:

“These exemplary leaders had excellent self-knowledge, by which we mean clearly defined and well-known attitudes and beliefs. Because they were such open books, there was no reticence on their part to talk or share their ideas and experiences with others. They let subordinates and superiors know what they thought and felt about an issue consideration. They were quickly comfortable in any environment, giving them a real advantage.”

Source: Power Thinking: How the Way You Think Can Change the Way You Lead

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:18 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 19, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the value of daily surprises:

“Try to be surprised by something every day. It could be something you see, hear, or read about. Stop to look at the unusual car parked at the curb, taste the new item on the cafeteria menu, actually listen to your colleague at the office. How is this different from other similar cars, dishes or conversations? What is its essence? Don’t assume that you already know what these things are all about, or that even if you knew them, they wouldn’t matter anyway. Experience this one thing for what it is, not what you think it is. Be open to what the world is telling you. Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences — the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be.”

Source: Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

II.

T.D. Jakes on personal responsibility:

“We are born looking like our parents, but we die looking like our decisions.”

Source: Disruptive Thinking: A Daring Strategy to Change How We Live, Lead, and Love

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:42 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 12, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Harvard Professor Paul Lawrence on making morally significant choices:

“It is as much within our power to make choices that lead to the destruction of species as it is to make choices which keep us on the track of continued life and development.

History shows us that humans have always needed gifted leadership to help them recognize and fulfill the universal moral sense we all have (except people-w/o-conscience), to see the opportunities to move forward on track, to see the potential of worldwide bonding.”

Source: Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership

II.

Art Horn on judgmentalism:

“Paradoxically, one of the chief tasks of leaders is to judge without being judgmental.

“We make judgments all the time, and that’s okay. The problem crops up when our factual judgments become generalizations and personal attacks. It’s the difference between finishing the first apple of your life and declaring, ‘I didn’t like that apple,’ and moving on to saying, ‘I don’t like any apples,’ and moving even further to ‘I don’t like your apples.’

“Generalizations and personal attacks are often, but not always, the result of egos becoming engaged. Ego is the part of the individual that sees itself as above, below, or against others. When you are in this mode, you are more likely to generalize and personalize your observations. Doing so helps you to protect yourself in some way. If you feel like you’re up against another department, for example, you’ll likely be tempted to take a fact or two and generalize. ‘See,’ you declare, ‘these guys are all like that.’”

Source: Beyond Ego: Influential Leadership Starts Within

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:57 PM
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Leading Thoughts for September 5, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Inky Johnson on burnout:

“People don’t burn out because of what they do. People burn out because life makes them forget why they do it. Meaning life hits and hits them with something until they just like, “Man if I’ve got to go through that, I’m not bringing it today, man.” And every day is not a good day. Everything is not all peaches and cream. But that’s why the culture is so important. That’s why when the culture is set, we know what we bring to it, and we know how we get down because we know what we’re working for. And the purpose of it is greater than any individual.”

Source: VIDEO: Control the Controllables

II.

Molly Fletcher stressing that drive is internal:

“When we focus on the opponent instead of running our own race, we allow the measuring stick to be our competition instead of ourselves. We are distracted by something uncontrollable.

“When I focused on the other agents, scrutinizing their every move and comparing myself with them, I was quickly distracted from upping my own game.”

Source: Dynamic Drive: The Purpose-Fueled Formula for Sustainable Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:33 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 29, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Deborah Gruenfeld on power:

“Success, impact, and life satisfaction are not the result of how much power you can accumulate, or even how powerful others think you are; they are the result of what you are able to do for others with the power you already have.

“People who use the power they have to manage their own powerless feelings are bound to stray from their responsibilities.”

Source: Acting with Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe

II.

Robert Hurley on stewardship:

“Stewardship is about service, not opportunism. The authority to solve complex problems and challenges will reside in the system of stakeholders, not in the leader. The leader’s job is to energize and facilitate, not dominate and control.”

Source: The Decision to Trust: How Leaders Create High-Trust Organizations

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 22, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall on guilt:

“Trying to be guilt-free and have the highest self-esteem leads us into an irresponsible life no matter how successful we are in our careers and social lives. If our ultimate self-help goal is increasing and protecting our self-esteem, we risk preventing ourselves from making necessary substantive changes in our lives.”

Source: The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need

II.

Jason Caldwell on mental processing:

“Accessing the problem-solving power of your mind is not about pushing; it’s about stopping. Mental processes are at their most effective during times of stillness, but we’ve stopped giving ourselves that opportunity. Because we keep forcing our minds to process, we never give them space to think, and by doing so, we take away their ability to solve.”

Source: Navigating the Impossible

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 15, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brad Stulberg on the inescapability trigger:

“A person can tell themselves that what they are doing is not good for them and that they need to stop, but until they mean it in every bone of their body, their mental and emotional energy goes toward finding a solution in the current state instead of imagining a new state altogether.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

Morgan Housel on incentives:

“No matter how much information and context you have, nothing is more persuasive than what you desperately want or need to be true.”

Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 8, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Simon Bailey on resilience:

“Life is full of highs and lows – Life is kind of like a wave in the sense that there are both peaks and dips. Sometimes, you feel like an absolute rockstar. Other times, you feel like the human equivalent of a discarded soft top surfboard. Just remember that you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf, which is to say that while the bad times will inevitably come, we have faith that you can always ride them out.”

Source: Resilience@Work: How to Coach Yourself Into a Thriving Future

II.

Errol Doebler on the importance of emotional awareness:

“As you can see, not acknowledging your emotions can be a recipe for disaster. This does not guarantee we’ll always make the right choice. The aim is to make sure you are making a conscious choice. Even when we make the wrong choice based on a conscious decision, we win. You win because you made a decision to go with your instinct, and then you were able to evaluate whether your instinct was good or bad.

“As leaders, we can’t hope or assume we will make the right choice on how to act. As leaders, we put ourselves in a position to take conscious action by always being aware of the driving behind our actions: our emotions.”

Source: Ice Cold Leader: Leading from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:26 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 1, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

James Murphy on continuous improvement:

“Our philosophy is that if that guy made the mistake, there are 50 other people who made the mistake, or who could. We want to prevent the mistake, not punish the person. He explained that debriefing can completely change the culture of an organization; in fact, he considers debriefing a culture, not an event. “As a leader, it was hard for me to stand up and list the mistakes I made—and what I was going to do about them. You have to accept that to create a culture of accountability, you can always do something better. You have to leave your ego at the door, create a safe environment for everyone, and be sincere. The moment you admit you made a mistake, it empowers everyone in the room.”

Source: Courage to Execute: What Elite U.S. Military Units Can Teach Business About Leadership and Team Performance

II.

Robert Hurley on stewardship fundamentals:

“Two fairly fundamental principles are associated with the adoption of an integrative stewardship orientation at the top of any organization. One is that the leader understands that the job requires him or her cooperate with and serve all stakeholders instead of competing with them. Stewardship is about service, not opportunism. The others is that the authority to solve complex problems and challenges will reside the system of stakeholders, not in the deader. The leader’s job is to energize and facilitate, not dominate and control.”

Source: The Decision to Trust: How Leaders Create High-Trust Organizations

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:31 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Greg Hoffman on inspiration:

“Leaving inspiration to chance, where it just hits you in a random moment, is not a recipe for sustained success in the creative world. You have to go out and find it. While some may be born with a seeker’s mentality, others can learn to be more curious. Curiosity is a muscle, and muscles need to be trained.”

Source: Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

II.

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler on deliberately practicing soft skills:

“Few people, if any, would think of practicing with a coach to learn how to get along with coworkers, motivate team members to improve quality measures, emotionally connect with a troubled teen, or talk to a physician about a medical error. Most of us don’t even think that soft and gushy interpersonal skills are something you need to study at all, let alone something you’d study and practice with a coach. But that’s precisely what should be going on.

“Many of the profound and persistent problems we face stem from a lack of skill (which in turn stems from a lack of deliberate practice) than from a genetic curse, a lack of courage, or a character flaw.”

Source: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:50 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Tom Asacker on leading with people:

“Those skilled at motivating people to cross a new bridge to change their beliefs and behavior, are not trying to cajole or manipulate them against their will. Rather, they seek to guide them to a new destination, a transformed way of feeling, thinking and acting that's aligned with their personal desires and values.

Effective leaders know that the first essential step to changing people's behavior is to understand their perspectives and embrace their desires and beliefs. Everything else flows naturally from there.”

Source: The Business of Belief

II.

August Turak on the three types of transformation:

“All human motivation arises from a longing for transformation. There are three different types of transformation. When thirsty man drinks, he transforms his condition. When a poor man the lottery, he transforms his circumstance. And when Mr. Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning an utterly new man, he has experienced a transformation of being.

All three types of transformation are necessary. It is only when we try to replace one type of transformation with another that we get into trouble. When we turn sustenance into ‘comfort food,’ are actually trying to fill that hole in our soul by overfilling our stomach. Comfort food is an attempt to substitute a transformation of condition for a transformation of being, often with disastrous results. Food, drugs, alcohol, and sex produce transformations of condition, and when used properly, all have their place. It is only when we mistakenly use them as a substitute for a transformation of being that things go terribly awry.”

Source: Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nance Guilmartin on the need to take a pause:

“Today you need the ability to discern what lies beneath people’s words, their reactions, or their silence. If you don’t build the neuropathways in your brain to pause, to momentarily disengage your automatic reactions, you can trigger a chain reaction that derails your best intentions and strategies.”

Source: The Power of Pause: How to be More Effective in a Demanding, 24/7 World

II.

Lawrence Levy on the nature of innovation:

“Culture is the invisible force on which innovation depends. We like to pin the mantle of invention on individuals, not circumstances. We anoint heroes and tell their stories. Yet innovation is a collective undertaking. It is as much the product of circumstance as of genius.”

Source: To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Peter Block on freedom and accountability :

“Freedom being the choice to be a creator of our own experience and accept the unbearable responsibility that goes with that. Out of this insight grows the idea that perhaps the real task of leadership is to confront people with their freedom. This may be the ultimate act of love that is called for from those who hold power over others.

Choosing our freedom is also the source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability. Freedom is not an escape from accountability, as the popular culture so often misunderstands.”

Source: Community: The Structure of Belonging

II.

Peter Koestenbaum on free will and responsibility:

“Freedom is a fact inside your heart. It is your most precious possession. It gives you power over your life. It gives you the benefit of being responsible for your existence and accountable for your life. Free will cannot be explained scientifically—only philosophically, poetically, religiously, or mythologically. Claiming your freedom is the ultimate secret for mastering your life.”

Source: Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness—A Philosophy for Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 27, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor L.A. Paul on how to think about important life choices:

“As we live our lives, we find ourselves confronted with a brute fact about how little we can know about our futures—just when it is most important to us that we do know. For many big life choices, we only learn what we need to know after we’ve done it, and we change ourselves in the process of doing it. I’ll argue that, in the end, the best response to this situation is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we’ll become.”

Source: Transformative Experience

II.

Lee Kuan Yew on leadership:

“The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.”

Source: The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 20, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Michel de Montaigne on safeguards:

“The infancies of all things are feeble and weak. We must keep our eyes open at their beginnings; you cannot find the danger then because it is so small: once it has grown, you cannot find the cure.”

Source: Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays

II.

Martyn Newman on self-reliance:

“Being self-reliant does not mean that you just go out and do your own thing. It means being secure enough in yourself to turn to others and take into account different points of view while also regarding yourself as finally responsible for working what has to be said or done.

“When you boil it down, self-reliance involves having confidence in your own judgement as a leader, and being able to control where you devote your most productive emotional and intellectual energy.”

Source: Emotional Capitalists: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 13, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Dean Williams on real leadership:

“In exercising real leadership, one must be open to new ideas and novel information. One must be willing to test deeply held assumptions and question prevailing truths. Too often managers in organizations write off people they dislike and refuse to entertain ideas that don’t agree with their particular paradigm or sense of the way things should be.”

Source: Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges

II.

Kim Scott explaining why leaders are the exception to the “criticize in public” rule of thumb:

“When you encourage people to criticize you publicly, you get the chance to show your team that you really, genuinely want the criticism. You also set an ideal for the team as a whole: everyone should embrace criticism that helps us do our jobs better. The bigger the team, the more leverage you get out of reacting well to criticism in public.

“Too many managers fear that public challenge will undermine their authority. It’s natural to want to repress dissent, but a good reaction to public criticism can be the very thing that establishes your credibility as a strong leader, and will help you build a culture of guidance.”

Source: Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 6, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Garret Kramer on insight versus willpower:

“Insight is infinitely more powerful than willpower. Actually, insight, or having a new idea and/or a change of heart, erases the need for strength or force of will of any kind.”

Source: Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life

II.

Bob Seelert on asking what’s right:

“When people come into an underperforming company, they often start by asking themselves, “What’s wrong?” This is the opposite of what they should do. In my experience, the best starting point is to ask, “What’s right?” Most enterprises that prosper do so for good reasons, and these reasons form the foundation from which you can and must build a successful company. Taking the best of the past, and linking it to the present and desired future is the most dynamic way to build a business.”

Source: Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:31 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 30, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Herman Cain on focus:

“The essence of focus is sacrifice. Leaders who cannot bring themselves to give up the unnecessary stuff for the sake of the necessary do not possess the critical leadership characteristic of focus.”

Source: CEO of Self: You're in Charge

II.

Josh Axe on how to begin the hero’s journey:

“When you accept responsibility for your circumstances and take radical action to change, you automatically step into the shoes of a hero. That is how you begin to write your best story possible.”

Source: Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 23, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Judge Charles W. McCoy on keeping an open mind:

“The human mind contains a door, one that either opens to new ideas or closes them out. The door swings on hinges like any other, opening as it searches for understanding and closing as it makes. Judgments. Herein lies a crucial truth. Sharp thinkers do not take open minds for granted. They concentrate on keeping their minds open long enough to gather all the relevant information needed for making sound judgments. Mediocre thinking begins judging at the outset, and often confuses preconceptions with real understanding. As the old saying goes, “Some people never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.

“The mind’s door, even those of the greatest thinkers, can open and close seemingly on its own without the slightest conscious nudge. Sharp thinking thus requires intentional effort at keeping the door open, especially in trying circumstances where tough problems arise.”

Source: Why Didn’t I Think of That? Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness

II.

James Autry and Peter Roy on integrity:

“The choices that will create the most frustration and anxiety, as well as the greatest challenge to your ability to maintain an ethical balance, will be about relationships, not about money. Once you recognize that your integrity is on the line every day, then your work life takes on a different meaning. You realize that as you begin to face the choices and make the ones that reflect your true self, then you can have an enormous impact on your workplace, regardless of your position in the organizational hierarchy.”

Source: The Book of Hard Choices: How to Make the Right Decisions at Work and Keep Your Self-Respect

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 16, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nido Qubein on becoming a transformational leader:

“People value authenticity ahead of charisma. Charisma gets you in the door, but it takes substance to deliver results. We all must remember it’s not about us. It’s about everyone around us. They are our team; you are their coach. You have to listen to what they say and engage your mind to absorb and understand their concerns. We need to listen twice as much as we talk, and others will hear twice as much of what we say. By listening, you will gain information and knowledge. Write it down to remember it. Then, execute. The end result? Wisdom begins to blossom.”

II.

Julia DiGangi on being right:

“What’s the fastest way to end a tug-of-war? Drop the rope. Maybe you’re starting to protest, “But why do I have to drop the rope? Why can’t they drop the rope?” Dropping the rope may seem like dropping out of the fight. Giving up. Losing. It’s not, though. Whoever voluntarily drops the rope is the leader.

To understand why, zoom out and look at tugs-of-war in the context of the leadership you want to create. Your role as a leader is to translate your vision into collective momentum—it’s about moving people from where they are to where they have the potential to be. No one will follow you while they’re busy fighting you. People get locked into exhausting tugs-of-war when they feel their independence is being disrespected—when their needs are ignored and their ideas devalued. Command energy is often the cause: Human beings can handle not getting their way; what they can’t handle is feeling dominated.”

Source: Article: The Anxious Micromanager—Why Some Leaders Become Too Controlling and How They Find the Right Balance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 9, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal on organizational politics:

“Leaders need friends and allies to get things done. To sew up support, they need to build coalitions. Rationalists and romantics sometimes react with horror to this scenario. Why should you have to play political games to get something accepted if it’s the right thing to do? One of the classics of French drama, Molière’s The Misanthrope, tells the story of a protagonist whose rigid rejection of all things political is destructive for him and everyone involved. The point that Molière made four centuries ago still holds: it is hard to dislike politics without also disliking people. Like it or not, political dynamics are inevitable under three conditions most managers face every day: ambiguity, diversity, and scarcity.”

Source: How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing

II.

Biologist John Medina on sleep:

“Sleep loss means mind loss. Sleep loss cripples thinking in just about every way you can measure thinking. Sleep loss hurts attention, executive function, immediate memory, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning ability, and general math knowledge. Eventually, sleep loss affects manual dexterity, including fine motor control and even gross motor movements, such as the ability to walk on a treadmill.”

Source: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:47 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 2, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert Cooper on preparing for the unexpected:

“We don’t always handle difficult situations as well as we could. Consider that the most exceptional people in many fields—athletes, teachers, and artists, for example—spend more time rehearsing than they do performing, whereas for most people, it’s just the opposite: almost no time practicing and most of their time performing. In the rush to achieve objectives, there is little attention to actually learning, in advance, better ways to live and lead. It takes serious rehearsal to build new skills, especially when the task involves overturning deeply ingrained brain patterns and habits.

Mentally rehearsing a new way that you might behave in the face of adversity activates the prefrontal cortex, and your imagined activities begin firing neurons and wiring them into brain patterns that can be activated whenever they’re needed. Without attentive rehearsal, your brain will not mobilize in advance, and despite your best intentions, you will act out old, counterproductive routines instead—or new, counterproductive ones, fired not by calm effectiveness but by frustration, anger, and other emotions that can distract you from giving best. When you prepare the prefrontal cortex to activate ahead of time, you will be better at calmly, effectively performing the right action.”

Source: Get Out of Your Own Way: The 5 Keys to Surpassing Everyone’s Expectations

II.

Morgan McCall, Jr. on leadership development:

“People are complex tapestries of values, attitudes, beliefs, and abilities. It is misleading to believe that these ten or those ten virtues apply to all successful executives in all situations, even within the same company. How that tapestry is woven, not its individual threads, determines how it looks. The room it is hung in and the surrounding decor—not individual threads—determine whether the colors and patterns of the tapestry are a good fit.”

Source: High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

David Rock on listening for potential in others:

“When you listen for potential, you’re assuming that others have the capacity to answer the question for themselves; you then respectfully see how you can best make yourself useful. Listening for potential is a choice in every moment. By choosing to listen to people as successful, competent, and able to resolve their dilemmas, guess what’s likely to happen? They often solve their problems and get on with the job. Quiet Leaders listen for potential. They listen to people as though they have all the tools they need to be successful, and could simply benefit from exploring their thoughts and ideas out loud.”

Source: Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

II.

Roger Martin on our personal knowledge system dynamics:

“Personal knowledge systems are highly path-dependent. When a person starts in a given direction, that direction is likely to be reinforced and amplified, not diminished or altered. This can happen for good or bad. A narrow and defensive stance will lead to acquisition of extremely limited tools and extremely limiting experiences. Those experiences then feed back into the acquisition of even more limited tools and the formation of an even narrower stance.”

Source: The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor Mary Murphy on organizational mindsets:

“The question is not: ‘Are you a person with more of a fixed or growth mindset?’ The question is: ‘When are you in your fixed mindset and when are you in your growth mindset?’ At the organizational level, the question is not: ‘How can we avoid hiring fixed mindset people?’ The question is: ‘What triggers our employees to adopt more fixed- or growth-mindset views and behaviors? How can we shape the environment to encourage more of a growth mindset more of the time?’”

Source: Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations

II.

William Ury on how we become our own worst enemy:

“The greatest power we have in difficult situations is the power to choose not to react but to go to the balcony instead. The balcony is a place of calm and perspective where we can keep * our eyes on the prize.”

Source: Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson on co-creating:

“The dark truth of success is that if we make it all about ourselves, our own egos, our individual performance, it eventually breaks down. It won’t have staying power. Most of us have experienced the reality of bosses or corporate cultures that go it alone, pushing agendas on us rather than building with us. Startups know this feeling. People running full speed toward their dreams know this feeling. But it’s fleeting. It doesn’t last if it’s not built with others, co-created.”

Source: Brave Together: Lead by Design, Spark Creativity, and Shape the Future with the Power of Co-Creation

II.

Adam Grant on personality and character:

“Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition—your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.

Knowing your principles doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to practice them, particularly under stress or pressure. It’s easy to be proactive and determined when things are going well. The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character how you show up on a hard day.”

Source: Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:10 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

General Gordon R. Sullivan on the power of reflection:

“Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore said that he had been reflecting, asking himself three questions: “What is happening? What is not happening? How can I influence the action?” Moore’s behavior captured the essence of strategic leadership. Moore was scanning his environment, thinking about his situation, then determining his best course. The future was winning the battle, simply parrying each thrust. The genius in Moore’s approach lies in his second question. By reflecting on what was not happening, he opened his mind to broader opportunities, to see the full range of his options. He was better able to anticipate what might or might not happen next and to plan his moves to best advantage. When asking can I influence the action?” he could thus envision a far greater range of responses than if he had simply been thinking in terms of action and counteraction.”

Source: Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America’s Army

II.

Fred Kofman on transcendent leadership:

“Transcendent leaders work to align the individual purposes of those under them into a larger collective purpose that makes each individual larger as well. They align their best efforts with the organization’s in natural ways that other systems can’t lead them to do. It is the difference between rowing and sailing. A boat moved by mere muscle is no match for one moved by wind. A boat propelled the wind flows in harmony with the natural forces. An organization that moves forward by formal authority is like a rowboat. One moved by a transcendent purpose is like a sailboat with the wind behind it, filling its sails.”

Source: The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 28, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Executive coach Daniel Harkavy on the core coaching competency of discernment:

“Discernment refers to the ability to see what is not visible, to understand what is not being said. Discernment enables a coach to ask effective questions, unearthing roadblocks, fears, and doubts that keep a team member from reaching his or her goals. And where do you get discernment? It comes with time in the coach’s seat. The more you invest in people and the more focused and intentional you become about helping people overcome obstacles, the more you will develop your discernment muscle.”

Source: Becoming a Coaching Leader: The Proven System for Building Your Own Team of Champions

II.

Pete Davis on democracy and commitment:

“In many ways, our whole democracy is an exercise in intertwining commitments and change. Democracy is all about the institutionalization of constant change. Even at the smallest level of democracy—a simple political conversation with someone with whom you disagree—we need commitment. Both people have to come to the table in good faith. If you’re not committed to a deliberative process, it has no chance of transforming you. A conversation you can easily exit is one where there will be none of the reconciliation, transformation, discovery of commonality, or higher synthesis—none of the development of a shared culture—needed to make democracy work. In a democracy, we’re working on something together, so the tension that comes with association must be held by everyone. If there’s no commitment to that tension, there can be no democracy.”

Source: Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 21, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Sport executive Scott O’Neil on keeping what’s most important front and center:

“What matters more than anything else to you? These are your guideposts, and any moment spent away from them is likely not a good use of time, a wasted effort, or, worse yet, just noise. This applies to work, home, faith, family, health, friends, and community. Your WMI might change, and it might be different for you today than three years from now, and it might be different for home with your spouse or with good friends or coaching a team. But you’ve got to figure out what the main thing is and transfer the time, energy, resources, and mindshare there. Put the emphasis where it belongs, in your WMI, and the rewards you will reap are hard to put into words.”

Source: Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving

II.

Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis on the need for both/and thinking:

“Uncertainty alone does not trigger a defensive reaction. Uncertainty can be beneficial or detrimental. It can spark curiosity and open-mindedness, it can also lead to more defensive closed-mindedness. The different reactions to uncertainty depend on our level of threat. Greater threat drives us to respond to uncertainty with a more closed, narrow focus. We avoid the information or ideas that raised the uncertainty in the first place. That is, we turn to either/or thinking seeking to minimize the uncertainty, and thereby the threat.”

Source: Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:49 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 14, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jason Jennings on having a clear destination:

“Not having a clear destination means never knowing the steps you need to take to get to where you want to go, never knowing if you’ve arrived or if you’ve achieved what you set out to accomplish. But if you have your destination in sight, those things that need to be reinvented will become obvious.”

Source: The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

II.

Alan Weiss on how powerlessness corrupts:

“Psychologically, people cannot comfortably live with the perception that they are powerless. So they make it up. That’s right, they create artificial power. And there is a name for that: bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the triumph of means over ends.”

Source: Thrive! Stop Wishing Your Life Away

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 7, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Umberto Eco on leading by example:

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

Source: Foucault’s Pendulum

II.

Jenifer Goldman-Wetzler on using our emotions to break our conflict habits:

“Putting your emotions to work for you does not involve tamping them down, getting rid of them, or scrutinizing why you feel the way you feel. Instead, it includes identifying, acknowledging, and using your emotions as a catalyst for constructive, pattern-breaking action. You simply cannot free yourself from the conflict loop if you are unable to use your own emotions toward constructive change.”

Source: Optimal Outcomes: Free Yourself from Conflict at Work, at Home, and in Life / Blog Post

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 29, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Kevin Roberts on the nature of leadership:

“Where should people start with “leadership” in a VUCA world? Leadership is both art and science. There are all kinds of leadership. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach. But the essence of leadership doesn’t change. In the last 50 years, production, distribution, and communication have been reset by technology. Leadership hasn’t changed much in 5,000 years. Technology doesn’t alter leadership. It lets leaders reach more people, quicker, more emotionally—that’s all. Leadership resists change because it’s about human nature. Leaders take people to a better place.”

Source: 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World

II.

Douglas Rushkoff on swallowing the storyteller’s pill to experience relief:

“If a storyteller wants us to believe in a religion, then his god will be responsible for our relief. If he wants us to believe in a politician or product, then one of these will be the solution.”

Source: Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:41 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 22, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter on the source of burnout:

“We believe burnout is the result of a mismatch between employee and workplace. Burnout is best conceptualized as a relationship problem—an issue with the fit, or match, between the person and the job. When there is a good match, the worker is likely to be engaged with the job and happy, energetic, confident, and ready to commit to a productive long-term relationship. But when there is a mismatch, the employee is more likely unhappy, exhausted, and cynical. A person in this situation may be unwilling to do more than the bare minimum, and ready to quit the relationship and leave for another job. In short, a worker experiencing a major mismatch is likely to experience burnout.”

Source: The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs

II.

Professor Moshik Temkin asks if you would fight back against a fascist power?

“We should not ascribe everything that happened in Vichy France to ideology or anti-Semitism. Probably a much more important reason for why certain French citizens acted the way they did was one of the strongest human desires—the desire for normality, which often just equates to conformity. The ideal scenario in 1940, at least for those who were able to, was to abide by the new status quo in an effort to keep life as normal as possible.

Life under tyranny can be banal, even pleasant, for most people. If you yourself are not the target of such a regime, you might not feel any difference at all between a fascist government and a liberal one. Indeed, your personal situation might be quite good. That was the case under the Vichy regime for many Frenchmen, who saw no reason to resist.”

Source: Warriors, Rebels, and Saints: The Art of Leadership from Machiavelli to Malcolm X

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 15, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Talia Fox on listening:

“Many of us remain confident in our ability to listen, insisting that we’ve been doing so all our lives. We believe we should focus our leadership efforts on other, less common skills, gravitating to things that seem newer and more innovative.

Listening is the single most important way to improve our relationships, build community, and achieve our goals. Conscious and connected listening is more complex than it may seem—often, when we think we’re listening, we’re actually just waiting for the chance to share the voices in our heads. The difference is crucial—and it changes everything.”

Source: The Power of Conscious Connection: 4 Habits to Transform How You Live and Lead

II.

Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson on leading with questions:

“If you want to focus on improving relationships, lead with a question. Instead of “How are you doing?” try asking, “What’s something exciting You‘re working on?” or “What do you recommend we do?” Watch people smile and light up when they feel connected. Next time you see someone is struggling, ask, “What’s on your mind?” This could make the difference in their day. It could free up their emotional constraints, even if just for a moment.”

Source: Brave Together: Lead by Design, Spark Creativity, and Shape the Future with the Power of Co-Creation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:24 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 8, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scott Shigeoka on other-directed curiosity:

“If we don’t direct our curiosity toward what’s outside of us, we can—become insular and overly self-focused. This can breed narcissistic or egotistical behaviors, decaying our ability to be sensitive and empathetic to the wants and needs of others. When we spend time and energy directing our curiosity outward, we reduce the risk of clinging on to a more individualistic mindset (such as the self-help trope that your only priority is for you to show up fully rather than to also consider how others are feeling). When we practice outward curiosity, we adopt a more collective and harmonic mindset that recognizes the inherent truth that we are all interconnected—to each other and to the planet.”

Source: Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World

II.

Entrepreneur Liz Elting on fine is not fine:

“This experience reinforced to me the importance of one-on-ones and taught me that as we grew, we needed to institute skip-level meetings so that our employees knew they were welcome to speak with their boss’s boss. These are also crucial because it can be difficult for an employee to open up about issues with the manager when speaking to that manager. When not allowed the opportunity to skip a level, the employee is more likely to say everything is fine. Fine is not fine. Fine is a deceptively bad term because it’s not definitive. Fine is what we say when we’d rather say something else but aren’t comfortable – it’s not worth it to do so. Fine doesn’t help anyone grow or improve. I’d much prefer an employee have a higher-level outlet who’s empowered to help them, rather than leaving them to their own devices, which may include bad-mouthing their boss to their coworkers and bringing down morale.”

Source: Dream Big and Win: Translating Passion into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:43 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 1, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Matthew Syed on giving failure a makeover:

“Self-justification is insidious. Lying to oneself destroys the very possibility of learning. When a plane has crashed, it’s difficult to pretend the system worked just fine. The failure is too stark, too dramatic. Most failure is not like that. Most failure can be given a makeover. You latch on to any number of justifications: ‘it was a one-off,’ ‘it was a unique case,’ ‘we did everything we could.’”

Source: Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes—But Some Do

II.

Sam Walker on finding leaders:

“I started to suspect that the real reason we can’t agree on the formula for elite team leadership is that we’ve overcomplicated things. We’ve been so busy scanning the horizon for transformational knights in shining armor that we’ve ignored the likelier truth: there are hundreds upon thousands of potentially transformative leaders right in our midst. We just lack the ability to recognize them.”

Source: The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:22 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Shayne Hughes on the toxic habit of being right:

“For our ego, the sensation of being right is like electricity to a lightbulb. It fuels us with energy and vigor. We sit straighter, our voice sharpens, and our language hardens. We face an issue or a conflict, and we see the answer clearly. With this certainty comes a feeling of power and righteousness, as captivating as a drug rush. This is the way it is. Being right sweeps us so automatically into an aggressive mental stance that any collateral damage seems just a necessary evil.”

Source: Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits That Hijack Your Business

II.

Chris Westfall on the danger of hanging our identity on an outcome:

“Human beings are really good at making stuff up. We create plans and projections and proclamations — stories inside our minds about perfect statues and how high expectations are a requirement for high performance. I’m not saying that having goals is completely useless. It’s not. What I’m talking about is our relationship with our goals. We build up all these ‘if/then’ statements: ‘if the doesn’t go for this idea, then I’m a failure. If she doesn’t love me back, I’m a loser. If this doesn’t go exactly the way I’ve scripted and sculpted it out, I’m a disaster.’ Hanging your identity on an outcome is a recipe for defeat. Because the expectation is based on a misunderstanding. Yet we do it all the time!”

Source: Easier: 60 Ways to Make Your Work Life Work for You

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:15 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brianna Wiest on growth through struggle:

“Often, our most intense discomfort is what precedes and necessitates thinking in a way we have never conceived of before. That new awareness creates possibilities that would never exist had we not been forced to learn something new.”

Source: 101 Essays that Will Change the Way You Think

II.

Entrepreneur Brad Jacobs on leaving judgement at the door:

“With non-judgmental concentration, you’re fully present in the moment, putting all your attention on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. Non-judgmental concentration trains your brain to realize that the people and things in your life don’t exist relative to you; they simply exist. If you can take yourself out of the equation, you’ll have a much clearer view. Uncluttered by judgmentalism, you can work more efficiently, because you won’t be as distracted, and you can think more objectively, too.”

Source: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:44 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor Nigel Nicholson on the challenge of the other perspective:

“Leaders need to remember the risks of the self-centered perspective, and the insights that can be gleaned by getting into a mental helicopter to rise above this view to understand the relativity of where people’s views emanate from. Every stakeholder has a point of view that identifies their position, and an accompanying wish list for the leader. The incoming leader needs to ask, listen, watch, wait, and then … think for themselves.”

Source: The "I" of Leadership: Strategies for Seeing, Being and Doing

II.

Donald Miller on finding meaning in life:

“To experience meaning, you have to accept the fact of your own agency and move into your life with intention. The point is that life feels like it has meaning if you structure your life so that you experience it. If we don’t want something, face our challenges, and try hard things, our life stories don’t work, either.”

Source: Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Use these ideas to spark your own leadership development. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Lance Secretan on projecting:

“When we project, we attribute certain personal traits or feelings to someone else to protect our own ego from accepting the reality that we own the very same traits or feelings—that they reside and flourish in our own shadow. It is especially likely to occur when we lack insight into our own impulses and traits. The behavior we dislike or find uninspiring in others is very often the behavior that exists in our shadow and which we project onto others, and this becomes their experience of us. If we are having trouble getting along with others, we may project this behavior onto them, and this may cause others to have difficulty in getting along with us.”

Source: Inspire! What Great Leaders Do

II.

Rose Patten on being more adaptable:

“A point of concern is how one reconciles adaptability with authenticity. Leaders are expected to do both. Authenticity is not a static, unwavering identity, nor is it an excuse for sticking to what’s most comfortable. Better leaders combine the two, which leads to earning trust. Being authentic cannot survive without an open mind. Nor can an open mind blossom without authenticity. Better leaders view adaptability as a true form of continuous learning and a means to embrace change.”

Source: Intentional Leadership: The Big 8 Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:07 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 28, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scott Weiss on straight talk:

“Uncertainty has yet to emerge as a higher-order value or behavior that organizations eagerly reward. It’s much easier to throw up an obfuscating cloud of doublespeak, to offer a glib, condescending sound bite, or even to lie outright than to admit that we simply don’t have the answer. But these are tactics that devalue both the question and the questioner. They may temporarily protect our image, but they are not ethical communications, and they don’t engender trust.”

Source: Dare: Accepting the Challenge of Trusting Leadership

II.

Michael Marquardt on the value of questions:

“A questioning culture encourages reflection. When we are immersed in a culture that encourages questions, it helps us become more self-aware, more conscious of choices we have made, more deliberate about our decisions. When a non-threatening environment for questions is a daily reality, people become ever more comfortable with themselves, know their strengths better, and are more self-assured.”

Source: Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 21, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Mattone on getting it right:

“Leaders generally derail not because of a character flaw but rather because they respond immaturely to mounting stress and change.”

Source: Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential

II.

KUSI CEO Talia Fox with an observation regarding organizations:

“Organizations have hierarchies, but rather than mere levels of power, they operate more as levels of understanding and observation.”

Source: The Power of Conscious Connection: 4 Habits to Transform How You Live and Lead

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:21 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 14, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Glenn Llopis on the opportunities that you see and grow will determine your success:

“The significance and impact of your work has more to do with the momentum of opportunities you pursue than anything else. The quantity of opportunities is a smaller matter. The quality of opportunities is everything. This explains why a green twentysomething can birth Facebook while fortysomethings everywhere struggle to make ends meet—or why more people became millionaires during the Great Depression than during any other era of American history, including the dot-com boom.”

Source: Earning Serendipity: 4 Skills for Creating and Sustaining Good Fortune in Your Work

II.

Richard (Craze) Templer on flexible thinking:

“If you want to know how flexible your thinking is, here are a couple of tests. Are the books by the side of your bed the same sorts of books you’ve always read? Have you found yourself saying anything like, “I don’t know any people like that” or “I don’t go to those kind of places?” If so, then perhaps it’s time to broaden your mind and take the shackles off your thinking.”

Source: The Rules of Life: A Personal Code for Living A Better, Happier, More Successful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:35 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 7, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultant Robert "Dusty" Staub on the courage to face our current reality:

“Why do so many intelligent people miss the obvious, focusing on what they wish to be true versus what is currently true and staring them in the face? The answer lies in how our minds distort reality to protect us from doubts or to protect our cherished assumptions and beliefs. For many of us, we simply do not wish to see something that indicates we might have to change our lives and our ways of doing things. Current reality can be inconvenient and downright unpleasant. It often challenges conventional wisdom. Courageously facing current reality means we may upset people who are unwilling to see it, and they will, in turn, pressure us to back down or subscribe to their viewpoint.”

Source: The 7 Acts of Courage : Bold Leadership for a Wholehearted Life

II.

Henry Kissinger on the leader’s challenge:

“Whatever their personal characteristics or modes of action, leaders inevitably confront an unrelenting challenge: preventing the demands of the present from overwhelming the future. Ordinary leaders seek to manage the immediate; great ones attempt to raise their society to their visions.”

Source: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 30, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia on stewardship:

“People come into this world with gifts and talents, full of possibilities and unrealized potential. Our responsibility as leaders is to help them realize those possibilities by looking for the talents and goodness that exist in them and inspiring them to become what they are meant to be. Leaders are called to help people become what they were put on this earth to be as individuals and as part of a team or community.”

Source: Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family

II.

Barbara Kellerman on the context of leadership:

“We need to think of leadership as a creative act for which leaders and followers both are educated, for which leaders and followers both are prepared over a lifetime of learning.”

Source: The End of Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Anthony Iannarino on how to start practicing gratitude:

“One way to start a gratitude practice is to take an inventory of all things for which You should be grateful. Include every good thing you have now and good things you have had in the past, including the experiences you’ve had throughout your life. It is sometimes easier to make a list, as it challenges your mind to fill in the blanks. This list should include the people who have had a profound impact on your life. Or negativity bias has us constantly looking for what is wrong. An inventory of what you are grateful for can help you recognize what you have that is positive and worth being grateful for.”

Source: The Negativity Fast: Proven Techniques to Increase Positivity, Reduce Fear, and Boost Success

II.

Brian Johnson on gratitude:

“As Tal Ben-Shahar tells us: “The word appreciate has tw0 meanings. The first meaning is to be thankful,’ the opposite of taking something for granted. The second meaning is ‘to increase in value’ (as money appreciates in the bank). Combined, these two meanings point to a truth that has been proved repeatedly in research on gratitude: when we appreciate the good in our lives, the good grows and we have more of it. The opposite, sadly, is also true: when we fail to appreciate the good—when we take the good in our lives for granted—the good depreciates.”

Source: Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brad Stulberg on getting comfortable with change:

“If we cannot get comfortable (or at least comfortable enough) with the fact that everything changes, we risk going through life at an arm’s length from its most poignant offerings. In trying to protect ourselves from the experience of change, we end up limiting the depth of our lives.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

William Vanderbloemen on self-awareness:

“Being self-aware makes you better at finding solutions. Knowing yourself comes with a guaranteed pinch: (or more) of humility, so when a self-aware person is faced with a challenge, they can decenter themselves from the issue. Being self-aware is knowing all about you while knowing that it’s not all about you. Whatever the crisis, the Self-Aware remain even-keeled and committed to the goal.”

Source: Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:33 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 2, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Prasad Kaipa and Navi Radjou on wisdom:

“Wisdom itself grounds us, helping us to shift from using our smartness for our own benefit—and often with a zero-sum mindset—to using it for creating new value for a higher purpose.”

Source: From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom

II.

Amy Jen Su on boundaries:

“Boundaries are not about putting on a suit of armor and assuming a defensive posture in trying to protect your time, energy, or emotions like a soldier stationed at the top of a fortress keeping enemies at bay. They’re also not about opening your door so wide that everyone and anything can get in. They’re about finding that middle ground that honors and protects your needs while remaining judiciously available to others.”

Source: The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self—Every Day

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 26, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Paul Schmitz on the idea that everyone leads:

“This does not mean that everyone can lead any effort, organization, or institution, or that one who is a good leader in one context is a good leader in other contexts. It does mean that a great leader can come from anywhere, and that unless more people believe in themselves, take responsibility, and work with others to make a difference, we all lose out from the lost potential.”

Source: Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up

II.

Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer on the need for a clear hierarchy:

“Co-leadership can kill both ideas and people, because it creates uncertainty over who is really in charge. Of course, co-led teams are not always ineffective and dangerous. But when there is not clear division of labor among these leaders, coordination becomes difficult, patterns of deference can disappear, and conflict can erupt.”

Source: Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 19, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Winters on collaborative decision-making:

“A top-down process for decision-making by edict may work fine in predictable situations or during times of crisis. But when it comes to making strategic decisions in complex and unpredictable environments, the all-too-familiar method of reflexive decision-making breaks down and delivers poor results. Our expertise and our power to decide get in the way of optimal outcomes. This occurs not only when we lead groups of people, but also when we have one-to-one conversations with colleagues.”

Source: You're the Leader. Now What? Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic

II.

Mark Sanborn on pulling others to achieve their potential:

“Nobody likes to be driven by someone else; it feels like being pushed. But when someone can show us how to be bigger on the inside—in our attitude and mindset—that can help attract or pull us toward what we can become.”

Source: The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:39 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 12, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter on how careers evolve:

“Nobody knows what they’re doing at first. You have to find something you are interested in, throw yourself at it, do the best you can, and pick things up as you go along. I never saw myself as having a career path. I’ve sort of muddled through from one thing to the next and, for most people, that’s just the way careers evolve.”

Source: Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal

II.

Fashion designer Rachel Zoe on career goals:

“I never made a blueprint for my future, and I don’t believe in setting rigid career goals. Career paths usually require a lot of trial and error, and you have to allow yourself the freedom to go with the flow. Sometimes, you think you should go in one direction, but it doesn’t work out or feel right. Occasionally, a better opportunity presents itself and you start over in a different area. If you set a goal that isn’t fairly realistic, you could be setting yourself up for failure—which can really set you back emotionally.”

Source: Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:49 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 5, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brian Tracy on how to test the validity of your excuses:

“There is a way that you can test your excuses to see if they are valid. It is simply to ask yourself, ‘is there anyone else who has my same excuse but who is moving ahead and succeeding nonetheless?’

“If you are honest with yourself, you will immediately realize that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who have it worse than you could ever imagine but are succeeding anyway. If this is the case, your excuse is invalid. Don’t let it hold you back anymore.”

Source: Crunch Point: The 21 Secrets to Succeeding When It Matters Most

II.

Google’s former Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan on self-confidence:

“The type of deep self-knowledge and blatant self-honesty needed for sustainable self-confidence means having nothing to hide from oneself. It comes from accurate self-assessment. If we can assess ourselves accurately, we can clearly and objectively see our greatest strengths and our biggest weaknesses. We become honest to ourselves about our most sacred aspirations and darkest desires. We learn about our deepest priorities in life, what is important to us, and what is not important that we can let go. Eventually, we reach a point where we are comfortable in our own skins. There are no skeletons in our closets we do not already know about. There is nothing about ourselves we cannot deal with. This is the basis of self-confidence.”

Source: Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 28, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Bill Taylor on humility and ambition:

“Exceptional performance begins with extraordinary insights. But that doesn’t mean it’s your job to come up with those insights. In businesses built on new ideas, generating and evaluating ideas is everybody’s business. That’s why humility and ambition need not be at odds. Indeed, humility in the service of ambition is the most effective mind-set for leaders who aspire to do nig things in a world with huge unknowns.”

Source: Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways

II.

Andy Cohen on assuming people think just like you do:

“It’s quite common to get frustrated with another person in your group for not thinking the same way as you do or to become angry when the person acts differently than you would have under the same conditions. There is no right or wrong in these types of situations because each party assumes he or she understands what to do. Yet when things don’t turn out as expected, each party is convinced that the other ‘didn’t listen’ or ‘should have known.’ The ability to create division between people so quickly is what makes [assuming people think like you do] so dangerous.”

Source: Challenge Your Assumptions, Change Your World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:44 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 21, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Tierney and Roy Baumeister on it’s what you don’t do:

“Being able to hold your tongue rather than say something nasty or spiteful will do much more for your relationship than a good word or deed.

“Remember the Negative Golden Rule—it’s what you don’t do unto others that matters most—you can avoid grief and save energy.”

Source: The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It

II.

Sean Glaze on complacency:

“Being uncoachable is really about being stuck in a comfort zone that a person refuses to acknowledge or leave.

“Turns out most people want to get better, but they want to do it their way. That usually means doing what they already know, which is just repeating the same stuff that got them stuck. ”

Source: Staying Coachable

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:53 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 14, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brad Stulberg on diversifying your identity:

“One of the most important parts of developing an identity that can thrive, persist, and endure change is to diversify your sense of self. You can think of identity like a house. You want the house to have multiple rooms. Perhaps there is a ‘parent’ room; an ‘athlete’ room; an ‘employee,’ ‘entrepreneur,’ or ‘executive’ room; a ‘community member’ room, and so on. It’s okay to spend a lot of time in just one room, but you’ve got to ensure you keep the others in good enough shape. This way, when you experience a massive change or disorder event in one area of your life, in one room of your identity, you can step into other areas to gain your footing and stability. Like a diversified portfolio in investing, diversifying your sense of self makes you more rugged and flexible in the face of change.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

Peter Block on freedom and accountability:

“The search for freedom—freedom being the choice to be a creator of our own experience and accept the unbearable responsibility that goes with that. Out of this insight grows the idea that perhaps the real task of leadership is to confront people with their freedom. This may be the ultimate act of love that is called for from those who hold power over others.

Choosing freedom is also a source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability. Freedom is not an escape from accountability, as the popular culture so often misunderstands.”

Source: Community: The Structure of Belonging

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 7, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Carey Nieuwhof on character:

“If you don’t nurture your character daily, you can be most admired by the people you know least, while the people who know you best struggle with you the most.

Character development for the most part doesn’t happen in some monastery with stone walls and dank cellars. It happens in the grind of everyday life. It has to because that’s where your character gets challenged the most: in parking lots, during meetings, amid marital conflict, and at home when you’re exhausted and the garbage still needs to be taken out and you trip over the kids’ shoes.

If you don’t have a day-to-day strategy, you’ll never win the battle for your soul.”

Source: Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences

II.

Jeffrey Pfeffer on not deceiving yourself into getting complacent:

“Once people believe they are better leaders—possibly because they have given talks or written about positive leadership, have attended lots of leadership trainings, or because they were once acknowledged for their good leadership—they are less likely to be as vigilant about their subsequent behavior, having already demonstrated their leadership credentials.

It is perhaps not that surprising, then, that some of the most harmful and hypocritical leaders are those who enjoy the most favorable leadership reputations and do a lot of teaching and writing about leadership—actions that then provide them the discretion to not actually live up to those reputations in their real behavior.”

Source: Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 31, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Associate Professor Tod Bolsinger on leading change:

“Groups are hardwired to believe that survival usually means reinforcing the way things have always been. So when an organization feels stress, the default behavior of most organizational leaders is to solve the problems for our organizations rather than change our organizations for meeting the needs of the world. The result is that instead of undergoing transformation to be more effective in our mission to serve the world, organizations unconsciously reinforce the very status quo that is not working.”

Source: Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change

II.

Science journalist Mark Buchanan on great individuals:

“What makes an individual notable and ‘great’ is his or her ability to unleash pent-up forces—the will of an age—and so enable those immeasurably greater forces to have their effect.”

Source: Ubiquity: The Science of History . . . or Why the World Is Simpler Than We Think

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 17, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Martin Moore on why leadership is hard:

“Leadership is hard because, more than anything else, it’s about people. Most of us struggle to manage ourselves: our subconscious drivers, our relationships, our emotions, our mental health, our habits. Leadership demands not only that we master ourselves, but also that we become strong enough and capable enough to help others do the same.”

Source: No Bullsh!t Leadership

II.

Steven Kotler on achieving the art of the impossible:

“Motivation is what gets you into the game; learning is what helps you continue to play; creativity is how you steer; and flow is how you turbo-boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations.”

Source: The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:43 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 10, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John W. Gardner on building meaning into your life:

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like an answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure—as the world measures success or failure—is of less account.”

Source: Living, Leading, and the American Dream

II.

Molecular biologist John Medina on work and family:

“There is no such thing as a firewall between personal issues and work productivity. That’s because we can’t have two brains we can interchange depending on whether we are in our office or in our bedroom. Stress in the workplace affects family life, causing more stress in the family. More stress in the family causes more stress at work, which in turn gets brought home again. It’s a deadly, self-feeding spiral, and researchers call it “work-family conflict.” So you may have the most wonderful feelings about autonomy at work, and you may have tremendous problem-solving opportunities with your colleagues. But if your home life is a wreck, you can still suffer the negative effects of stress, and so can your employer.”

Source: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:00 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 3, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ray Dalio on embracing reality as indispensable to making good choices:

“People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices.”

Source: Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

II.

Timothy Keiningham and Lerzan Aksoy on the art of loyalty:

“Loyalty by its very nature demands that we commit ourselves to a person, group, or cause. We suppress our short-term self-interests to maintain our bond. In its most noble form, we serve a cause greater than ourselves, designed to unite with another. Therefore, in our training to be loyal, we need to learn the real meaning of service to something greater than oneself.”

Source: Why Loyalty Matters: The Groundbreaking Approach to Rediscovering Happiness, Meaning and Lasting Fulfillment in Your Life and Work

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 27, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Gary Hoover on the need for leaders with a renaissance mind:

“The more specialized we become, the greater our need for leaders who can help bring unity to our efforts. We need people who can think, write, and speak with clarity and conviction, people who can relate to and motivate accountants and salespeople, nurses and electrical engineers, systems analysts and social workers.”

Source: Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking for Business Success

II.

Jen Goldman-Wetzler on acknowledging feedback:

“Because humans have an innate need to maintain a positive view of ourselves, we tend to be threatened by, and therefore ignore, reject, or become defensive or even aggressive, in reaction to information that does not confirm this view.”

Source: Optimal Outcomes: Free Yourself from Conflict at Work, at Home, and in Life (Blog Post)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 20, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Siimon Reynolds on how vagueness leads to failure:

“The average person has no clear purpose, and that’s why people end up average. It’s not unusual to see people working 12 hours a day and still not getting anything substantial done. Why? At the heart of it, their lack of clarity about the best use of their time leads them to work on what’s urgent, not what’s important. Foggy purpose always leads to mediocre results, no matter how intelligent you are.”

Source: Why People Fail: The 16 Obstacles to Success and How You Can Overcome Them

II.

Kobe Bryant on the focus necessary to become a champion:

“Basketball, for me, was the most important thing. So everything I saw, whether it was TV shows, whether it was books I read, people I talked to—everything was done to learn how to become a better basketball player. Everything. Everything. So when you have that point of view, the world becomes your library to help you become better at your craft.

“What I found in the NBA is a lot of guys played for financial stability. When it came to the NBA, they got that financial stability, so therefore the passion, the work ethic, and the obsessiveness was gone. I’m looking at that, and I’m like, ‘This is going to be like taking candy from a baby. No wonder Michael Jordan wins all these championships.’ This is crazy. And then you had the players that had that passion but weren’t willing to commit their entire lives to doing that. It’s a choice. You have other things. You have family, and you have all these other things you have to do. The game really can’t be your number-one priority. I’m looking at that, and I’m like, this is going to be fun.”

Source: Valuetainment, Kobe Bryant’s Last Great Interview

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:01 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 13, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Mattone on the importance of critical thinking:

“Much of your natural thinking as a leader, when left unchecked, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. Your effectiveness as a leader, however, depends precisely on the quality of your thoughts. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking, about any given subject, in which you, the thinker, improve the quality of your thinking by skillfully taking charge of its very structures and imposing intellectual standards upon them. Effective critical thinking, however, involves consideration of the full range of possibilities to a problem, including emotional, cognitive, intellectual, and psychological factors.”

Source: Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential

II.

Tiffani Bova on the need to focus on input metrics to get at the source of problems:

“When businesses realize they are falling short in delivering great employee and customer experiences, they tend to make the same mistake: they set out to fix the problems without really knowing why they are coming up in the first place. Without data, companies don’t have the ability to determine causes. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop many of them from moving forward with important strategic decisions. By focusing on symptoms before diagnosing causes, they overlook the actual problems that, inevitably, continue to cause trouble in measurable or, worse, hidden ways.”

Source: The Experience Mindset: Changing the Way You Think About Growth

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 6, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Bogle asks us what rabbit we are chasing:

“[We need to] ask ourselves whether we’re chasing the fake rabbit of success or the real rabbit or meaning, defined by the contributions to our society that stem from principle, virtue, and character.

“While our best and brightest are exquisitely trained to pursue the false rabbis of success, on the whole they are being poorly trained in the intangible qualities that become the virtues that bring real success.”

Source: Enough. True Measures of Money, Business, and Life

II.

Noel M. Tichy on the need to produce leaders at all levels:

“Leadership is the whole game. No institution—religious, military, educational, political or business—can be great unless it has a great leader at the top who develops leaders at all levels of the organization. The goal is leaders at all levels who all teach and develop other leaders.”

Source: The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 29, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jon Gordon on our connectedness:

“In Los Angeles—home to some of the worst traffic in the United States—a brilliant sign read, ‘You are the traffic.’ In essence, since we are all one, we are all the traffic. When you realize this truth, you stop seeing others as separate and part of the problem. In fact, the circumstance is not even a problem. The lie that you are separate is the problem. Remember the truth and enbjoy the ride.”

Source: The One Truth: Elevate Your Mind, Unlock Your Power, Heal Your Soul

II.

Robert Waterman on bureaucracies:

“Bureaucracy gets us through the day; it deals efficiently with everyday problems. The trouble is, change ignores conventional bureaucratic lines. The real action in organizations occurs outside ‘the proper channels.’”

Source: Adhocracy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 22, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire on mindful daydreaming:

“It may be wise to question whether we should always be living in the moment and whether this is the best way to foster creative thinking. Finding this ‘middle way’ between mindfulness and mind wandering can help us enjoy the optimal benefits of both ways of thinking. Mindfulness helps us truly see what’s around us—a skill of paramount importance in life and art—but it must be balanced with giving the mind space to dream, fantasize, and simply roam free.”

Source: Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind

II.

Martyn Newman on how your self-confidence determines your success:

“If you grew up in an environment in which you were continually criticized, you probably learned to focus on your faults and inadequacies. You may do a number of things really well, but when you make a simple mistake, you enlarge it out of proportion. It’s like your attention is conditioned to ignore the things you have done well; instead, it is drawn like a magnet to focus on the negative parts of your performance. And there is a direct relationship between your performance in any area and your level of self-confidence.”

Source: Emotional Capitalists: The New Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 15, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Boyd Clarke and Ron Crossland on how leaders need to fill in the blanks:

“When leaders communicate facts alone, constituents fill in the emotional and symbolic blanks. The same is true for the other channels. We always fill in the blanks. Remember, your brain works this way. When constituents fill in the blanks left by leaders, they construct a different message than the leader sent. Leaders, believing they have communicated completely, now fall into the fatal assumptions trap. What results is one of four things: a lack of understanding, a lack of agreement, a lack of caring, or a lack of appropriate action.”

Source: The Leader’s Voice: How Your Communication Can Inspire Action and Get Results!

II.

Scott Adams on knowing where to start:

“When you do something the wrong way, the people who know how to do things the right way will generally jump in to tell you what you are doing wrong. Take advantage of all that free advice.

“If you don’t know how to do something the right way, and Googling doesn’t help, the only alternative to doing things the wrong way is to do nothing at all. That’s loserthink. Waiting until you know how to do something exactly right is a poor strategy. You could be waiting forever. Better to jump in, make your mistakes, and see what kind of free assistance that attracts.”

Source: Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 8, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Daly on the importance of repetition:

“There is a wonderful story of a man who was so in love with a woman who lived far from him that every day, for 500 days, he mailed a love letter to her. On the 500th day, she married the postman. Exposure works. Up to a point, it can enhance decision-maker’s feelings toward an idea.”

Source: Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others | (Blog Post)

II.

Neen James on deliberate attention:

“I think paying attention means listening with our eyes and our ears, thinking with our brains, understanding with our hearts, and giving with our souls. Deliberate attention means identifying the people, priorities, and passions that matter most in our lives and then purposefully and proactively focusing our conscious attention on them.

“Conscious attention is stopping what we are doing on the computer to give our full attention to a team member who comes into our office to talk.

“Deliberate attention is organizing your attention toward a particular purpose. It’s saying no to some things so you can say yes to the important things that deserve your time and focus.”

Source: Attention Pays: How to Drive Profitability, Productivity, and Accountability

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 1, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

T.D. Jakes on disruptive thinking:

“Every period of chaos brings with it a gift—an opportunity to disrupt the chaos by providing a solution rather than joining the debate. Disruptive thinking isn’t about picking a side in the argument; it’s about stepping past the argument toward a solution.”

Source: Disruptive Thinking: A Daring Strategy to Change How We Live, Lead, and Love

II.

Retired Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney on dynamic subordination:

“In a high-performance team, leadership shifts to wherever, and whomever, the leader needs to be at any given moment. Those teams understand that information, challenges, and obstacles can come from any angle at any time. And they’re effective because the teammate closest to the problem is able to step up and lead, while the rest of the group defers to that temporary leader.”

Source: The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:50 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 25, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Schoolteacher Alice Moore Hubbard, on how to teach:

“Teaching is successful only as it causes people to think for themselves. What the teacher thinks matters little; what he makes the child think matters much.”

Source: Life Lessons: Truths Concerning People Who Have Lived

II.

Ray Bradbury on the lost art of contemplation and real connection:

“Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it Clarisse had said one afternoon? ‘No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn’t want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turning things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs anymore. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around.’”

Source: Fahrenheit 451

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:22 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 18, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Daphne Jones on looking beyond the distractions:

“Focus on the outcomes. You need to be like a football team that is focused on getting that ball in the end zone. You can’t be distracted by the people who seem to be ‘coming after you.’ Even though you will be aware of the naysayers, the haters, those who will try to drag you down, don’t focus on them, but merely calculate how you will go around them or through them to get to your outcome and goal.”

Source: Win When They Say You Won't: Break Through Barriers and Keep Leveling Up Your Success

II.

William Dawson on the value of limitations:

“The thing that is least perceived about wealth is that all pleasure in money ends at the point where economy becomes unnecessary. The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys. There is a subtle pleasure in the extravagance that contests with prudence; in the anxious debates which we hold with ourselves whether we can or cannot afford a certain thing; in our attempts to justify our wisdom; in the risk and recklessness of our operations; in the long deferred and final joy of our possession; but this is a kind of pleasure which the man of boundless means never knows.”

Source: The Quest of the Simple Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 11, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Morra Aarons-Mele on labeling:

“Such an error in thinking gets you off the hook when it comes to improving a situation. If you think you’re inherently bad (I am a failure), rather than a normal person who makes mistakes or bad decisions (I occasionally fail), you’ve essentially given up before even trying. The same thing occurs when you label other people. ‘You see them as totally bad,’ David Burns writes. ‘This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves little room for constructive communication.’ Labeling makes it difficult to create a workplace culture with constructive communication and teams committed to improving performance.”

Source: The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower

II.

Douglas McGregor on motivation:

“The motivation, the potential for development, the capacity for assuming responsibility, the readiness to direct behavior toward organizational goals are all present in people. Management does not put them there. It is a responsibility of management to make it possible for people to recognize and develop these human characteristics for themselves.”

Source: Leadership & Motivation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 4, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Susan Fowler on letting go of the notion that you can and should motivate people:

“Attempting to motivate people is a losing proposition, no matter your resources. Why? Because people are already motivated—but maybe not in the way you want. When you assume people aren’t motivated, you tend to fall back to strategies proven ineffective, wrongheaded, or even counter to what you intended. You incentivize, and when that doesn’t work, you add more carrots (rewards, incentives, bribes). When you run out of carrots, you may try wielding a thicker stick (threats, fearmongering, and punishment). At some point, you realize your attempts to motivate people are fruitless or, even worse, more harmful than beneficial.”

Source: Why Motivating People Doesn't Work...and What Does, Second Edition: More Breakthroughs for Leading, Energizing, and Engaging

II.

Former NASA engineer-project manager and launch director at SpaceX John Muratore on the importance of purpose:

“Tom Holloway, a very famous Program Manager, and head of Flight Directors for a long time, told me something very interesting. He said, ‘People ask us what our greatest resource is, and we always say, ‘our people.’ We have some bright people, but the truth of the matter is we don’t have any better people than anybody else has. Our people aren’t our greatest resource. Our sense of mission is our greatest resource. When we lose our sense of mission, we are in the most jeopardy. When we have a high sense of mission, we can overcome any obstacle. Where we get in trouble is where we lose the sense of mission. We get wrapped up in politics, we get wrapped up in budget and schedule. We get wrapped up in personal issues. If we want the best for NASA, we’ve got to keep our mission, focus on what’s our mission.’ If our activity is not clearly, demonstrably, absolutely, most effectively supporting that mission, we’ve got to change what we’re doing. No matter how painful or how difficult. Because our people sense it, and then we no longer get the best out of them.

“Finding what the mission was and instilling that sense of mission in our people has always been the difficult challenge, and it’s probably the most difficult challenge today because I think people are confused beyond all shadow of a doubt right now about our mission. They don’t understand what the mission is, and that’s the biggest challenge. I think the cool thing about it is that’s something we can do something about it. It’s something totally within our control. ”

Source: NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Interview, May 14, 2008

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 27, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

INSEAD professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries on wisdom:

“Wise people recognize that life moves with an ebb and a flow. There will be highs and lows and there will be peaks and valleys. Life is never going to be an easy ride, but during this journey that is your life there can be discovery, change and growth if that is what you seek. During this journey, you can have a choice: you can acquire wisdom or you can remain blinded. What you decide to do is all up to you. This journey towards wisdom very much implies living in the present, planning for the future, and profiting from the past.”

Source: Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times

II.

Adam Markel on what’s worth fighting for:

“Part of keeping calm is just doing the thing that’s I front of you and not getting your emotions lost in fighting battles about what is fair or unfair. That’s a losing proposition. Even when we’re correct and we’re fighting over what is fair or unfair, we’re losing. There’s right and there’s wrong. That’s different. That’s worth fighting for.”

Source: Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-term Resilience

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:41 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 20, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

As the new CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz on listening:

“Perhaps it wasn’t as important that I proved to employees that I had all the answers to every problem. If I simply demonstrated that, before I intended to lead, I wanted to listen and learn from them, perhaps that would be enough to generate goodwill.

If I could just break down this wall of distrust, it would be more important than getting every decision right. The only way to do that was to speak honestly about where I came from, how I was raised, and the values my experiences in life had instilled in me.”

Source: Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies

II.

Bertrand Russell on how to grow old:

“Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true, it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.”

Source: Portraits from Memory and Other Essays

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:38 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 13, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Laura Gassner Otting on just taking action:

“When struggling to make big life choices—leaving a job, ending a relationship, seeking more education, quitting smoking—studies show people who flip a coin and ‘go for it’ regardless of the outcome are more satisfied with their decisions and much happier six months later than those whose coin toss instructed them to maintain the status quo. Action beats stagnation. When you’re unsure about what to do, you’ll be happiest if you just choose something to do.”

Source: Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn't Feel Like It Should . . . and What to Do About It

II.

Admiral William H. McRaven on death before dishonor:

“Leadership is difficult because it is a human interaction, and nothing is more daunting, more frustrating, more complex than trying to lead men and women in tough times.

To live life above the common level of life: to be noble when others may be unprincipled, to be honorable when others may be shameless, to be men and women of integrity when others may resort to dishonesty. What I found in leading and being led by great officers from all branches of service was the importance of character and having a personal code of honor to help guide you through the difficult times. ”

Source: The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:56 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 6, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Dave Ramsey on momentum:

“Momentum is an interesting and somewhat elusive thing. When you have momentum in any area of your life you look better than you are. When your star is shining everyone thinks you are smarter and prettier than you really are. Conversely when you don’t have momentum you are better than you look. What we discovered is that momentum is not a random lightning strike, but on the contrary, it is actually created.”

Source: EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches

II.

Associate professor Mark de Rond on lovable fools and competent jerks:

“The analysis suggests that if someone is strongly disliked, it is almost irrelevant whether or not he is competent. By contrast, if someone is liked, her colleagues will seek out every bit of competence she has to offer, meaning that a little likeability has far more mileage than competence in making someone a desirable team player.”

Source: There Is an I in Team: What Elite Athletes and Coaches Really Know About High Performance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 30, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Will Marré on making choices based on our outer identity:

“Instead of making authentic choices, we make choices based on the part we’re playing. Our lives are dictated, to a large degree, by what we think we must do to remain members in good standing of whatever club we have decided to join.”

Source: Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner

II.

John Baird and Ed Sullivan on what could derail you:

“It is crucial for leaders to be very clear about what their values mean in practice. Transparency can be conflated with having no privacy. Honesty can be conflated with oversharing. And inclusion can be conflated with consensus.”

Source: Leading with Heart: Five Conversations That Unlock Creativity, Purpose, and Results

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:59 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, on developing human potential:

“When somebody comes into our organization and agrees to join us, when we invite them into our organization, we become stewards of that life, just as we are when a child comes into our life. A different level of intensity but the same concept. And the way we treat that person who joins our organization will profoundly affect that person’s marriage and the way that person raises their children and interacts with our community.”

Source: The Lean CEO: Leading the Way to World-Class Excellence

II.

Former president of Florida Hospital’s Central Region, Brian Paradis on the hero leader:

“Our society has a case of the hero leader. We admire a strong leader. Even if we fear them, we believe they will get things done. He or she will have a direction and we won’t flounder. The responsibility for success rests with them, not us, so we don’t have to be accountable. This is seductive but it does not hold up under scrutiny. There is a long list of organizational and personal failure under this brand of leader.”

Source: Lead with Imagination

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:19 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ritch Eich on natural born leaders:

“Too often we hear things such as ‘he (or she) is a natural-born leader.’ A person may, indeed, have the make-up, temperament, patience, and vision to lead, but without the right attitude, experience, approach, and training, that individual’s ‘knack’ for leadership doesn’t translate into real leadership.”

Source: Real Leaders Don't Boss: Inspire, Motivate, and Earn Respect from Employees and Watch Your Organization Soar

II.

NFL Offensive tackle Rayfield Wright on leading our youth:

“Parents, teach your children well. Encourage them with your faith and leadership. Remember that you are the windows through which your children see this world. Take notice of yourself and the things that you do in hopes that your example will stir their hearts and souls.”

Source: Speech, Don’t Be Afraid to Travel the Road Less Traveled, August 5, 2006, NFL Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:12 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 9, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Matt Higgins on why you need to go all in:

“Backup plans can make you feel safer and help you cope with uncertainty, but they also reduce the likelihood that your primary goal will ever be achieved. The mere act of contemplating a Plan B sets in motion a feedback loop that dramatically lessens the probability that Plan A will come to fruition. You spend too much of your emotional energy on contingency planning instead of on success.”

Source: Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential

II.

Robert E. Quinn on the courage to change ourselves:

“One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment. Personal change is the way to avoid slow death. When we are continually growing, we have an internal sense of meaning and impact. We are full of energy and radiate a successful demeanor. To have such feelings in a continually changing environment, we must continually realign ourselves with our environment.”

Source: Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Matt Mayberry on avoiding slogans and no action when transforming your culture:

“Culture is not just about turning values into behaviors. It’s about turning values into repeatable behaviors, into actions that become daily habits that are shared across the organization.

Doing something most of the time, especially in the context of exchanging a negative behavior for a new and more positive behavior, is a good first step in the right direction, but it’s still just a step. Doing something repeatedly, to the point where it becomes ingrained into what an organization does daily and becomes common practice, is where cultural excellence lies.”

Source: Culture Is the Way: How Leaders at Every Level Build an Organization for Speed, Impact, and Excellence

II.

Abraham Lincoln on the requirements for facing new challenges:

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country”

Source: Annual Message to Congress – Concluding Remarks, December 1, 1862

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:29 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nine-time Grammy-winning producer Rick Rubin on awareness:

“Awareness is not a state you force. There is little effort involved, though persistence is key. It’s something you actively allow to happen. It is a presence with, and acceptance of, what is happening in the eternal now.

As soon as you label an aspect of Source, you’re no longer noticing, you’re studying. This holds true of any thought that takes you out of presence with the object of your awareness, whether analysis or simply becoming aware that you’re aware. Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.”

Source: The Creative Act: A Way of Being

II.

Professor Robert Mayerovitch on teachability:

“Curiosity doesn’t negate what you know and treasure. Instead, it offers the promise of even more: more richness, more depth, and breadth, more opportunities to be amazed and troubled and challenged and stimulated and ultimately uplifted by what you find.”

Source: Speech, The Challenge of Otherness, May 7, 2006

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 9, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robin Sharma on leadership roles:

“Know your role. Everyone needs to behave like a leader—no matter what they do. Everyone needs to demonstrate leadership traits—regardless of their position. That means everyone needs to take responsibility for getting results that they generate. Everyone needs to do their part to shape culture. Everyone needs to be positive and inspirational. Everyone needs to keep customers happy and protect the brand. Everyone is a leader. But not everyone is the same.”

Source: The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class

II.

Rose Patten on true collaboration:

“Spirited collaboration – enabling and encouraging dissent, with the ultimate objective of arriving at a better outcome. A harmonious group of like minds becomes an echo chamber of agreement. A leader who doesn’t allow diverse opinions and ideas for improvement will perform suboptimally. Today’s leadership challenges – a more complex and diverse workplace, digitalization, far-reaching stakeholder expectations – will push the need for inclusive and dissenting (“spirited”) collaboration.”

Source: Intentional Leadership: The Big 8 Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 2, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert Kaplan on learning to ask the right questions:

“Fortunately, the key to managing and leading your organization and your career does not lie in ‘having all the answers.’ The key lies in making a conscious effort to regularly step back to reflect, and then identify and frame the issues that are central to leading your organization effectively into the future.”

Source: What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential

II.

Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn on creativity:

“Regardless of exactly how you define creativity, the key thing is that we never create out of whole cloth. Instead, we connect what we have, bringing together two or more elements in a new way. Abundant ideaflow requires enormous amounts of raw material to make more of these unexpected combinations.”

Source: Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 26, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Niccolò Machiavelli on resistance to change:

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

Source: The Prince Translated by Thomas G. Bergin (1947)

II.

George Steele and Paul Kircher on innovation:

“Picture a man in charge of weapons for a medieval king. If he is scientific minded, he will try to improve his bows and arrows by working on different parts of the product. The searcher may be assigned to study the properties of feathers. He will try to improve the breed of birds, study feather selection, and storage, investigate whether they should be trimmed ½- or ¾-inch wide, and so on. This man will conduct what many call ‘scientific research’ for years. He may achieve many improvements, giving arrows better stability and accuracy; but what is the chance that such a man will ever invent a gun? If he should hear about one, the chances are he will do his best to point out how unstable and dangerous it is to carry a powder horn, how inaccurate the new guns are, and how many families depend for their livelihood on the chicken feather business.”

Source: The Crisis We Face: Automation and the Cold War

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:44 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 19, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Susan Scott on being with someone prepared to be nowhere else:

“It’s amazing how this seemingly small thing—simply paying fierce attention to another, really asking, really listening, even during a brief conversation—can evoke such a wholehearted response. A Chinese proverb says, ‘When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds.’ When someone really asks, we really answer.”

Source: Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time

II.

Ray Bradbury on the power of always taking the next step:

“Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.”

Source: Interview: The Art of Fiction No. 203

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 12, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nathan and Susannah Furr on uncertainty:

“Behind every uncertainty you are facing—even the unwanted and unpromising varieties—insight, growth, and possibility are waiting in the wings. We are all wired to fear the downsides of uncertainty, but we forget that change, creation, transformation, and innovation rarely show up without some measure of it.”

Source: The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown / (Blog Post)

II.

Scott Sonenshein on pushing ourselves into action:

“The wait for the ‘right’ resources can be long or even never-ending, but acting immediately teaches us to appreciate and work with what we do have.”

Source: Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less—and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined / (Blog Post)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 5, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ed O’Malley and Julia McBride on asking, “What’s my part of this mess?”:

“One person can see a problem, get more curious about it, and use their influence to make things better. But real change begins when lots of people get curious about what’s really going on with a problem or challenge.”

Source: When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved

II.

Journalist and essayist Pico Iyer on uncertainty:

“We’re always living in a state of uncertainty — two years ago, two years from now — and that therefore, part of our challenge as I see it is to make uncertainty our church in New Jersey — to make it our home. This is where we’re living, every day of our lives. And so, as you said, let’s rejoice in it, furnish it, close the door, rearrange the books, and say, Make this as beautiful as it can, given that forest fire, earthquake, or who knows what will be coming tomorrow — or tremendous beauty and love may be coming in the door tomorrow.”

Source: Pico Iyer interviews with Elizabeth Gilbert, The Future of Hope Series

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 29, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Charles Handy on the nature of vision:

“A plan or a strategy which is a projection of the present or a replica of what everyone else is doing is not a vision. A vision has to reframe the known scene, to reconceptualize the obvious, connect the previously unconnected dream.”

Source: The Age of Unreason

II.

Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison on failure:

“The most important aspect of failure is not the moment of defeat or loss. Rather, it is what happens the moment after failure occurs and a choice is presented: to allow fear to rule or to shift from setback to lesson learned. Henry Ford said, ‘Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.’ I don’t know a CEO who can’t identify with that sentiment, knowing that it takes both success and failure to shape one’s ability to lead. Success may instill confidence, but it is failure that imparts wisdom. With wisdom comes the inner serenity needed to change a bridge between failure and success.”

Source: No Fear of Failure: Real Stories of How Leaders Deal with Risk and Change

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 22, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Erica Ariel Fox on developing an internal Lookout so you can see your reactions rather than just acting on them:

“When life hands you a situation, your Lookout sees where you’re headed. Before you do or say anything, the Lookout lets you know. With that information, you might or might not choose to change course. If you do, you’ll get a different outcome than what you’ve gotten before. Developing your Lookout skills over time will create the lasting change you want, in your leadership and in your life.”

Source: Winning from Within: A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change

II.

Gary Hamel on the need for leaders to be stewards:

“If you are a leader at any level in any organization, you are a steward—of careers, capabilities, resources, the environment, and organizational values. ... What matters now, more than ever, is that managers embrace the responsibilities of stewardship. ... If you’re a manager or an executive, your stewardship obligations extend far beyond yourself and your family. Yet in recent years many business leaders have blithely dodged those responsibilities. So, ask yourself, am I really a steward?”

Source: What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 15, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Theologian Richard Foster on the need for deeper thinking:

“Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or a gifted people, but for a deep people.”

Source: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

II.

Science writer Stephen Johnson on the mental routines that you typically experience in unison:

“The more you learn about the brain’s architecture, the more you recognize that what happens in your head is more like an orchestra than a soloist, with dozens of players contributing to the overall mix. You can hear the symphony as a unified wash of sound, but you can also distinguish the trombones from the timpani, the violins from the cellos.”

Source: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:02 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 8, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jim Wallis on moving forward after a crisis:

“Not all of our old habits, behaviors, and institutions are bad, just as not all new ones are good. We need to uncover some forgotten lessons that have served us well in the past and make sure the baby of our better choices doesn’t get thrown out with the bathwater of our mistakes.”

Source: Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street by Jim Wallis

II.

Alan Stein Jr. on character:

“Character means you understand that there are more things beyond winning and losing. The workplace and the business world are not all zero-sum games. There can be more than one winner, and a workplace of battling egos inevitably suffers in productivity.”

Source: Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 1, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Designer Mauro Porcini on getting the question right:

“The quality of the question is fundamental: far too often, people generate a whole set of correct answers for a whole set of wrong questions. And too often, people forget to question the validity of their questions, finding comfort instead in the correctness of their answers.”

Source: The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People

II.

Crisis management consultant James Lukaszewski on integrity:

“Each scenario begins with and is made worse by breakdowns in integrity. Before somebody breaks the rules, before somebody breaks the law, before some executive gets into deep difficulty and becomes highly visible, there is a systemic fracture, sometimes even collapse, of integrity. I define integrity as the inherent tendency in individuals and organizations to do the right thing at every opportunity when confronted with choices, options, or dilemmas.”

Source: Speech, Avoiding Integrity, March 2, 2007

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:53 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 24, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ryan Hawk on the quality of gratitude that you find in transformational relationships and people:

“They compliment people behind their backs. When you’re talking with these types of people, they are constantly shining a light on the goodness of others. When something goes well in their life, they are quick to point out how it couldn’t have been done without the great work of other people.”

Source: The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World’s Most Productive Achievers

II.

Jonathan Sacks on the benefits of gratitude:

“When individuals focus on and express thankfulness, they experience more positive emotions. Gratitude encourages the savoring of positive experiences. It bolsters feelings of self-worth. It helps people cope with stress. It inhibits invidious comparisons with others. It encourages moral behavior—grateful people are more likely to help others. It tends to dissipate negative emotions such as anger. And it counteracts the hedonic treadmill. Gratitude is the opposite of the mindset of the market-led, consumer society. It is about satisfaction with what we have, not hunger for what we do not have.”

Source: Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 17, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Computer scientist and venture capitalist Paul Graham on the tendency to go with the crowd:

“Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.”

Source: Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

II.

Consultant Anish Batlaw on building a pipeline of talent inside the company:

“Companies will need systematic programs for identifying people inside the company and grooming them so they are ready when important opportunities open. And this talent cannot be a carbon copy of the leaders who came before. In the knowledge economy impacting all areas of our lives, business leaders need a broader range of skills than previously required to deliver multiples in value creation. In the globally networked world, organizations must collaborate more than ever, internally as with other organizations and partners, across boundaries, and across disciplines. Future generations of leaders must be more agile and comfortable with ambiguity and be able to anticipate and build capabilities ahead of the curve. They are going to need to learn at a much faster pace than ever before and be the drivers of innovation and change.”

Source: Talent: The Market Cap Multiplier

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 10, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

David Abshire on trust:

“Trust, in its fullest sense, extends beyond simply having great confidence in a person, of faith that a task will be performed. Trust manifests itself when one becomes committed to the protection and care of someone else—he is entrusted to that person who holds his faith in trust.”

Source: Speech, “Trust and General Hal Moore,” June 11, 2006

II.

Peter Drucker on the responsibility dictated by choice:

“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”

Source: Leader to Leader, Spring 2000, “Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 3, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Political commentator Walter Lippmann claims that when the press exists primarily for its own purposes and agenda, it threatens democracy whenever it has an agenda other than the free flow of ideas:

“We shall advance when we have learned humility; when we have learned to seek the truth, to reveal it and publish it; when we care more for that than for the privilege of arguing about ideas in a fog of uncertainty.”

Source: Liberty and the News

II.

Sociologist and educator David Stanley Eitzen on avoiding trends that deprive us of humanity:

“Modern technology often encourages isolation. Because of computers and telecommunications, there is a growing trend for workers to work from home. At last count, 28 million Americans worked out of their homes, using computers or telephony instead of face-to-face interaction. While home-based work allows flexibility and independence not found in most jobs, these workers are separated from the rich social networks that often give rise to numerous friendships and make working life enjoyable or at least tolerable.”

Source: Speech, “Avoiding Trends That Deprive Us of Humanity,” October 16, 2003

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 27, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Conductor Benjamin Zander and family therapist Rosamund Zander on the power of perspective:

“Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.”

Source: The Art of Possibility : Transforming Professional and Personal Life

II.

Founder of Catalyst for Peace, Libby Hoffman on listening with:

“Not a passive or one-way listening, that way of asking for and receiving someone else’s one-directional offering. There is a special kind of listening that can only happen over time, and I have come to think of it as one of the great untapped social change resources available to us, if we cultivate the commitment and the sensibilities to utilize it. It is both a listening to and a listening with another. Listening with implies a common standpoint and/or a common vision or purpose calling you forward. With ongoing presence and engagement, this kind of listening can be generative and creative—co-creative.”

Source: Answers Are There: Building Peace from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 20, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Computer programmer Ward Cunningham on the learning experience of decision-making:

“I can't tell you how much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering, but that means you have to set up the situation such that when something does go wrong, you can fix it. When something does go wrong, it doesn't cost you or your customer an exorbitant amount. It isn't ridiculously expensive. When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.”

Source: Interview, Collective Ownership of Code and Text

II.

James MacGregor Burns on the changing context of leadership:

“American leadership went into decline after the revolution. The leaders were generally the same men, many far-famed and even venerated, but they were projected now into a different situation. They had been united behind transcending goals. Now they were divided over mundane policies. They had offered a striking example of bold, collective—even transforming—leadership. Now they were expected to practice piecemeal, transactional leadership.”

Source: Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:33 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 13, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultants Kevin and Jackie Freiberg on finding the right fit when hiring:

“Consultants Kevin and Jackie Freiberg on finding the right fit when hiring: Have you defined what it takes to be a great employee in your company? Identify people who already work for you who fit the description. Then ask their customers, employees, peers, and managers what makes them so effective and easy to do business with.

Take the answers and make a list of the relevant attributes, such as establishes great rapport with customers; works efficiently; knows the technology better than anyone; has a special knack for helping staff develop; can find humor in difficult situations. From this list, create a profile of a great employee and see to it that new hires match it. ”

Source: Guts: Companies that Blow the Doors Off Business-As-Usual

II.

Mike Myatt on the leadership gap:

“When leadership is perceived as little more than a title granting access to a platform for personal gain, rather than a privilege resulting in an opportunity to serve, we’ll continue to find ourselves in a crisis of leadership.”

Source: Hacking Leadership: The 11 Gaps Every Business Needs to Close and the Secrets to Closing Them Quickly

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 6, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsk on why leadership is dangerous:

“Each day brings you opportunities to raise important questions, speak to higher values, and surface unresolved conflicts. Every day you have the chance to make a difference in the lives of people around you.

And every day, you must decide whether to push your contribution out there, or keep it to yourself to avoid upsetting anyone, and get through another day.

The hope of leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignore it or kill the messenger.”

Source: Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading

II.

Anthropologist Grant McCrackenon the need to move things outside of the gravitational field of the corporation:

“If you ideate in the same space as you work in, you are going to come up with the same solutions.”

Source: Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football...Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 29, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Paul Magnone, Christopher Frank and Oded Netzer on how we consider data in decision-making without taking the time to ask for context:

“Humans tend to claim they know the absolute truth about something without appreciating the whole picture. They rely heavily on their own subjective experience to draw generalized conclusions, and they ignore other people’s limited subjective experience, even though combining their own experience with that of others would produce the most comprehensive and objectively accurate picture of something.”

Source: Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance between Intuition and Information

II.

Saj-Nicole Joni and Damon Beyer on the need for leaders to create a certain amount of healthy struggle and positive change by fighting the right fights … right:

“You cannot win with a team that is badly aligned. The problem is, it’s not sufficient. Achieving perfect or near-perfect alignment is not the end of the road. It’s merely the beginning

In an environment where alignment is the only goal, alignment robs us of necessary dissent, of the checks and balances that mitigate risk, and of the tensions that create innovation and sustainable value. People and organizations perform optimally when they are under the right kinds and amounts of stress.”

Source: The Right Fight: How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive Performance, Innovation, and Value

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 22, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Feynman on regret:

“If you want to live a regret-free life, you need to stop thinking about what others think about you and your life. We spend our entire lives thinking, and in fact overthinking about people, society, teachers, and others think, who do not know our paths, our struggles, our good and bad, and unfortunately, we allow them to control our lives. It’s you who has to decide what makes you happy and pursue it accordingly. It would be stupid of you to try and stand by someone else’s expectations. Do what you feel is good for you, and right for you, In doing so, it is very obvious that you will come across failures and disappointments, but that will teach you a great deal and the best part would you, it would you and only you responsible for that.. Prof. Feynman”

Source: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

II.

Journalist Ferris Jabr on why walking helps us think:

“Perhaps the most profound relationship between walking, thinking, and writing reveals itself at the end of a stroll, back at the desk. There, it becomes apparent that writing and walking are extremely similar feats, equal parts physical and mental. When we choose a path through a city or forest, our brain must survey the surrounding environment, construct a mental map of the world, settle on a way forward, and translate that plan into a series of footsteps. Likewise, writing forces the brain to review its own landscape, plot a course through that mental terrain, and transcribe the resulting trail of thoughts by guiding the hands. Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts. Ultimately, maps like the one that Nabokov drew are recursive: they are maps of maps.”

Source: Why Walking Helps Us Think, The New Yorker, September 3, 2014

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 15, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Military strategist Sun Tzu on preparation:

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

Source: The Art of War

II.

American novelist Mary Flannery O’Connor on growth:

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.”

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:59 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 8, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Queen Elizabeth II on the value of stepping back and reflecting:

“We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock. Be it through contemplation, prayer, or even keeping a diary, many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection surprisingly rewarding, even discovering greater spiritual depth to their lives.”

Source: Queen's Christmas message, December 25, 2013

II.

Queen Elizabeth II on courage:

“Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.”

Source: 1957 Christmas Broadcast

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 1, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jon Gordon on the ultimate rule of positive energy:

“Your positive energy and vision must be greater than anyone’s and everyone’s negativity. Your certainty must be greater than everyone’s doubt. There will always be people who don’t share your vision. There will always be the doubters who doubt, doubt, and doubt and tell you you can’t do this and you won’t be able to accomplish that. They think that dreams were meant for others but not for people like you and them. And there will even be people who don’t want you to succeed because it makes them see their own weaknesses and failures. Rather than driving their own bus they are trying to ruin everyone else’s ride.”

Source: The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy

II.

Wally Amos on facing your problems:

“One of the realities of existence is this: If you don’t get it right the first time, life will give you another chance to master that aspect of things. And if you miss your next chance, that same challenge will again present itself to you. The process continues until you get it right. The inevitable cycle is a curse if you are running away from your problems, and a blessing if you are seeking to grow through them. In every challenge lies an opportunity.”

Source: Man With No Name: Turn Lemons into Lemonade

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:02 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 25, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Fred Harmon on the value of self-restraint:

“Situational rather than habitual self-restraint is always a strain. Self-mastery lets us relax and focus on results even in tense situations. The world-famous tennis star does not lose her concentration because she is behind in the deciding set. Long practice in controlling her emotions permits her to continue playing at her peak. The practice of self-restraint in making common everyday acts more perfect builds up a similar inner calm on which one can rely in any crisis.”

Source: The Executive Odyssey: Secrets for A Career Without Limits

II.

Andrew and Nada Kakabadse and Linda Lee-Davies on staying forever refreshed as a leader::

“Successful leadership is never truly mastered as it is an organic service which must be ever refreshed and refined. The changing nature and demands of the follower and the changing nature and demands of the external environment mean that even once the leader has reached a point of maximum provision for their troops in their current state, they must put some serious planning into the next likely situation they will face. There is no rest, learning to lead never stops and the truly successful, the truly great leader knows that they are leading to learn.”

Source: Leading for Success: The Seven Sides to Great Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 18, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former Blue Shield of California CEO Bruce Bodaken and Robert Fritz on opinion dumps:

“Telling someone your opinion is not the same as exploring reality. Groups that really tell each other the truth are the ones that ask each other questions, seriously seek to understand opinions that are different from their own. They strive to comprehend rather than simply impose their ideas on others, and they engage in a collective dialogue in which people together seek understanding.”

Source: The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance

II.

Ram Charan on the roadblocks to moving forward:

“Today transformational change is the norm. Every company has to be able to perceive what will make their best-laid plans obsolete tomorrow and change direction quickly. Dissatisfaction with the status quo and a search for what’s next is a universal human endeavor. It does not reside in one person, department, or organizational layer. The flow of ideas cannot be blocked by bureaucratic layers. Do the people at traditional companies welcome change? What happens to the good ideas that emerge? How quickly do they get converted into action?”

Source: Rethinking Competitive Advantage: New Rules for the Digital Age

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 11, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Historian John Lukacs on turning points:

“A turning point is not a milestone; the latter is a numerically fixable place, foreseeable, linear, and sequential. A turning point may occur in a person’s mind; it may mean a change of direction; it has consequences that are multiple and unpredictable, consequences that are more multiple and unpredictable, consequences that are more often than not recognizable only in retrospect. A turning point may sometimes be foreseeable, but not with certainty.”

Source: Five Days in London: May 1940

II.

Professor Emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary Eddie Gibbs on what we find in the absence of good leadership:

“Feedback is no longer oriented to how people can succeed but to how they have failed—not just in their work but as human beings.”

Source: Leadership Next: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 4, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Performance coach Jason Selk on the need to heat up your performance:

“All day long, the thermostat governs the temperature in the room and won’t allow the room temperature to rise or drop from the desired temperature for long. Human beings are the same way: we neither outperform nor underperform our self-image for very long. That’s why it is so important to set your self-image gauge high enough to achieve your life goals. Set your self-image gauge too low, and by definition, you’ll underachieve because your mind won’t call for the motivation to achieve more.”

Source: Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance

II.

Jim Loehr explaining that the key to mental recovery is to give the conscious, thinking mind intermittent rest explaining that the key to mental recovery is to give the conscious, thinking mind intermittent rest:

“Much like the body, the brain needs time to recover from exertion. After we have learned new information or had new experiences, it takes time for the brain to consolidate and encode what it has learned. In the absence of downtime, or recovery, that learning cannot take place as efficiently.”

Source: The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 28, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Betsy Myers on how leadership is about how you make people feel not only about the work but themselves:

“The truth of life is that it doesn’t unfold through lofty mission statements or happen in broad strokes. It is a personal, everyday experience for every one of us.”

Source: Take the Lead: Motivate, Inspire, and Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Everyone Around You

II.

Mike Thompson on becoming a discerning leader:

“Being a discerning leader isn’t about making a good decision, but rather about forming the habit of making good decision after good decision. To become a discerning leader, you need to immerse yourself in a constant state of evaluation. It means continuously gathering and analyzing information, seeking various points of view, and scanning the horizon for coming shifts. Because these leaders never view their decisions as static, they aren’t consumed by trying to make the perfect call. They can confidently move forward, knowing that they can, and will, make adjustments as they go.”

Source: The Anywhere Leader: How to Lead and Succeed in Any Business Environment

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 21, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jack Zenger, Joe Folkman, and Scott Edinger on how clarity tells people what not to do:

“Clarity of vision helps all members of the group to be vigilant about not attempting to serve everyone who wants to be a customer, or to embark on any project about which someone becomes enthused, or to create a new product because one prospect or client expresses interest in it. These are hard decisions to make, especially for newly created organizations that are scratching out their existence. But given limited resources, it is especially crucial for those companies to stay focused.”

Source: The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate

II.

Musician and speaker David Usher on the opportunities to apply creative principles to all areas of our lives:

“Once you start to look at the world through the lens of creativity, everything looks different. Creative thinking is an integral part of everything we make, but also every relationship we have and every interaction in our lives. It’s not just about the world of things. It exists in the connections we make, how we formulate sentences, the way we negotiate with our bosses, and how we choose to look at the world. Once you see the creative process as the underpinning of all these connections and interactions, then the world really is different. Instead of just acting by instinct and routine, repeating the same patterns over and over, you begin to view interactions as possibilities, and you become an active participant. Every moment and interaction becomes an opportunity to apply the principles of creative thinking.”

Source: Let the Elephants Run: Unlock Your Creativity and Change Everything

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 14, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former president of Chick-fil-A, James Collins, on the correlation between authority and responsibility:

“Authority properly used comes packaged with responsibility. Therefore, as I discovered over the years, more authority can be gained in bits and pieces. I gained more authority without having it given to me; all I had to do was figure out what the boss didn’t like to do, take responsibility, and do it.”

Source: Creative Followership: In the shadow of Greatness

II.

Bill George on why leaders lose their way:

“Leaders whose goal is having power over others, maximizing their wealth, or becoming famous tend to look to other people for fulfillment and acknowledgment of their status.

Before you take on a leadership role, ask yourself, “What motivates me to lead this organization?” If the honest answers are simply power, prestige, and money, you are at risk of being trapped by external gratification as your source of fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with desiring these outward symbols if, and only if they are balanced by a deeper desire to serve something greater than yourself. Extrinsic rewards exert a force that can pull you away from your True North if not counterbalanced by a deeper purpose or calling that gives you a passion to lead.”

Source: Discover Your True North

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 7, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Henry Kissinger on the need for leadership:

“Any society, whatever its political system, is perpetually in transit between a past that forms its memory and a vision of the future that inspires its evolution. Along this route, leadership is indispensable: decisions must be made, trust earned, promises kept, a way forward proposed. Within human institutions—states, religions, armies, companies, schools—leadership is needed to help people reach from where they are to where they have never been and, sometimes, can scarcely imagine going. Without leadership, institutions drift, and nations court growing irrelevance and, ultimately, disaster.”

Source: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

II.

In a caution to all leaders, Professor Ngaire Woods at the University of Oxford on why Vladimir Putin would turn Russia into a pariah state without achieving any of the goals of his invasion:

“Why would such a powerful leader make such a major blunder? The answer lies in the very nature of power itself. Leaders in positions of tremendous authority often wear blinders that can cause them to make profound mistakes. Power can mislead insofar as it prevents the powerful from taking full stock of the consequences of their actions.

“But these blind spots are not inevitable, nor are democracies doomed to them. The leaders of powerful countries can protect themselves from the pitfalls of power and make sure that short-term expediency doesn’t get in the way of the big picture.

“A first line of defense from error lies in the group around a leader. Beyond the cabinet, other institutions need to be fully functioning. Public officials and technocrats, the courts, legislatures, the media, and public opinion each play a role in making sure the leader is not blinded by power.”

Source: Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022, “What the Mighty Miss: The Blind Spots of Power”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:50 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 30, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scientist Marie Curie on the importance of self-improvement for the betterment of self and others:

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Source: Pierre Curie (Autobiographical Notes)

II.

Thomas Mitchell, a farmer, on productivity:

“It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day, if we go by the rule—map out our time, divide it off, and take up one thing regularly after another. To drift through our work, or to rush through it in a helter-skelter fashion, ends in comparatively little being done. ‘One thing at a time’ will always perform a better day’s work than doing two or three things at a time. By following this rule, one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.”

Source: Essays on Life by Thomas Mitchell, Farmer

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:03 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 23, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and investor, Tony Fadell on becoming a manager:

“Remember that once you become a manager, you’ll stop doing the thing that made you successful in the first place. You will no longer be doing the things you do really well—instead you’ll be digging into how others do them, helping them improve. Your job will now be communication, communication, communication, recruiting, hiring and firing, setting budgets, reviews, one-on-one meetings (1:1s), meetings with your team and other teams and leadership, representing your team in those meetings, setting goals, and keeping people on track, conflict resolution, helping to find creative solutions to intractable problems, blocking and tackling political BS, mentoring your team, and asking ‘how can I help you?’ all the time.”

Source: Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

II.

Former Nike Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hoffman on passion:

“Passion is a risk-taking emotion because it demands that we reveal so much of ourselves to others. If you’ve ever found yourself in a conversation with someone about their passion, then you know what I mean. You can feel it; they get carried away. And when they finally stop talking, they can be a little embarrassed. But that’s good. Show that to your audience. Imbue your brand, your stories, your spaces with passion unbridled. Start talking about what you love and don’t ever stop.”

Source: Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 16, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Amor Towles’ character Count Alexander Rostov on withholding judgement:

“The Count had to acknowledge once again the virtues of withholding judgment. After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of the hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration--and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

Source: A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

II.

Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter on rights and civility:

“If we fail to distinguish desire from right, we will not understand that rights are sensible and wise only within particular contexts that give them meaning. The Constitution protects a variety of rights, but our moral norms provide the discipline in their exercise. Sometimes what the moral norm of civility demands is that we restrain our self-expression for the sake of our community.”

Source: Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:44 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 9, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

INSEAD professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries on the importance of being kind:

“Quite often, when people are hurting others, it is because they are hurting themselves. This does not mean that you should try to explain it away, that you should try to justify and rationalize inappropriate behavior. The decision to set boundaries concerning certain behavioral patterns is part of being morally responsible. Still, in trying to understand why these people are doing what they are doing, you could also keep in mind the words of Carl Jung: ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’ It may give you additional insights about what is happening as we all have a tendency to project unwanted parts of ourselves on to the other. It is far too easy to deposit on the other aspects of our shadow side—to use the other as some kind of ‘garbage can.’”

Source: Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times

II.

Darryl Stickel on the growing cynicism surrounding leadership:

“As the world evolves, our expectations of leaders seem to be getting broader and increasingly contradictory. Ultimately, we tend to trust those who have strong abilities and demonstrate excellence in their field. Are leaders supposed to give us decisive direction? Be consensus builders? Inspire us? The answer to all of these is yes, but how are they supposed to do that in environments where those judging leadership qualities appear to agree on so little? Also, our definition of leadership excellence changes with different situations. The challenge we have is that if we don’t clearly define excellence for leaders, it is almost impossible for them to strive for it.”

Source: Building Trust: Exceptional Leadership in an Uncertain World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 2, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor emeritus of medicine Jon Kabat-Zion on problem-solving:

“In general, if you feel you’ve got a problem to solve that is ‘out there’ and you don’t necessarily see or want to see any possible relationship between the ‘you’ who is trying to solve the problem and what the problem actually is, you may wind up not being able to see the problem accurately, in its fullness. You therefore may unwittingly be contributing to maintaining the undesired situation rather than allowing it to evolve and perhaps dissolve.”

Source: Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

II.

Writer David Chapman on how to improve your thinking:

“Learn from fields very different from your own. They each have ways of thinking that can be useful at surprising times. Just learning to think like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a philosopher will beneficially stretch your mind.”

Source: How to Think Real Good

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 26, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former president, CEO, and chairman of Procter & Gamble, John Pepper on values:

“Over the years, I’ve seen that the strongest leaders are those who have enough confidence to seek input from others without losing the direction provided by their own internal compass. They understand that the objective of learning is not comfortable consensus. It is to make wiser, more informed choices.”

Source: What Really Matters: Service, Leadership, People, and Values

II.

Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsk on having compassion when leading change:

“The people who fight the hardest also have the most to lose; and therefore, they deserve the most time, attention, care, and skill.”

Source: Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 19, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

London Business School professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones on conforming yet remaining authentic:

“Leaders must conform enough if they are to make the connections necessary to deliver change. Leaders who succeed in changing organizations challenge the norms—but rarely all of them, all at once. They do not seek out instant head-on confrontation without understanding the organizational context. To change an organization, the leader must first gain at least minimal acceptance as a member.”

Source: Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader

II.

Harvard Professor Joseph Badaracco on quiet leadership:

“The most effective leaders are rarely public heroes. These men and women aren’t high-profile champions of causes, and don’t want to be. They don’t spearhead ethical crusades. They move patiently, carefully, and incrementally. They do what is right—for their organizations, for the people around them, and for themselves—inconspicuously and without casualties.”

Source: Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:17 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 12, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Anthropologist Grant McCracken on inspiring innovation and creativity:

“People who escape familiar groups and make contact with unfamiliar ones become smarter and more creative.

“The trick is to invent our own serendipity to establish a cloud of possibilities in which we can spot the telling pattern.

“We need ideas we can’t guess we need. We must canvass concepts that are entirely unrelated to our present problem set. Only thus do we give our deeper powers of pattern recognition a chance to work.”

Source: Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football . . . Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas

II.

Former Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens on servant leadership:

“Do you want to be around somebody who lifts you up, or somebody that breaks you down? That’s why whenever people ask me what’s your leadership style, my answer is, ‘It should be you.’ There’s an authenticity that is needed for leadership. If it’s not real, then it’s not going to work.

“You have to be empathetic in knowing that everybody has their own lives, and everybody has something tough going on. You need to make sure you understand that before you coach them.”

Source: Getting to Us: How Great Coaches Make Great Teams by Seth Davis

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 5, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor Scott Galloway on the worst advice given to young people:

“Your job is to find something you’re good at. And then spend thousands of hours and apply the grit and the sacrifice and the willingness to break through hard things to become great at it. Because once you’re great at something, the economic accouterments of being great at something, the prestige, the relevance, the camaraderie, the self-worth of being great … will make you passionate about whatever it is. Here’s the problem with believing you should follow your passion: Work is hard. And when you run into obstacles and you face injustice, which is a common guaranteed attribute of the workplace, you’ll start thinking, ‘I’m not loving this. This is upsetting and hard. It must not be my passion.’ That is not the right litmus test.’”

Source: The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World’s Most Productive Achievers by Ryan Hawk

II.

Stephen M. R. Covey on command and control:

“Command & Control is about getting things done, but it misses the potential power of the people who get those things done. Command & Control is about being efficient with people, trying to motivate them instead of inspiring them. It’s about self-interest and competing rather than serving and caring. And if all else fails, it’s about barking out the orders so everyone does exactly what they’re supposed to do—not because they want to, but because they have to. In short, it’s about controlling people instead of unleashing their potential.”

Source: Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:27 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 28, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

David Baldacci’s character Aloysius Archer on resilience:

“From now on his life path would be pointed steadily forward, right at the fresh waves coming for him, rather than the choppy ones that had just passed underneath and battered him.

“Hell, they can only hit you once.

“It was all about what was coming up. And whether you could handle it. And even if you couldn’t handle it, it was about how you tried to handle it.”

Source: Dream Town

II.

Tim Elmore on the difference between adapting and adopting:

“The key to good leadership is catching the wind and capitalizing on it to take you where you need to go. And, perhaps more importantly, to take the students under your care where they need to go. Our job is not merely to adopt what’s trending in our culture. Leaders don’t just fit in. Our goal is to adapt, not adopt. There’s a huge difference. We adapt to the realities of our day, leveraging current methods to say what must be said to our young. Once again, we are timely in our methods, but timeless in our mission. We are timely in our communication style, but timeless in our content. We are timely in our pedagogy, but timeless in our purpose.”

Source: Marching Off the Map: Inspire Students to Navigate a Brand New World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:12 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 21, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultant Stan Slap on the purpose of leadership:

“The irreducible essence of leadership is that leaders are people who live their deepest personal values without compromise, and they use those values to make life better for others—this is why people become leaders and why people follow leaders.”

Source: Bury My Heart at Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers

II.

Tom Morris on the Rule of Reciprocity:

“One problem with the Rule of Reciprocity is that when you live by it, you allow others to call the shots. Like it or not, we deal with people every day who fall into this pattern of conduct and just reflect back to us whatever we do to them. This is a truth of great importance since it gives us one of the main reasons why unethical business practices are self-destructive. It may be easy to treat people badly one by one, or a few at a time, but over the long run, if you have treated enough other people terribly, and they are living reciprocally, then they are out there as a growing multitude preparing to do the same to you. And together, they’ll eventually have the power to bring you down.”

Source: Art of Achievement: 7C’s of Success In Business and Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:40 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 14, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Creative director, designer, and agency owner Michael Janda believes every position can be electrifying:

“You don’t have to be the art director, creative director, CTO, or VP of blah-de-blah agency to be a key member of a company. Any role, any position, in any organization can have a huge impact on the success of the organization. Throughout my career, I have seen junior programmers and junior designers make HUGE impacts on company success. By striving to maximize your contribution, regardless of the position you fill on the org chart, you can make an impact.”

Source: Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff They Don’t Teach You In Design School But Should

II.

The twentieth president of the United States, James A. Garfield, on the sovereignty of the family:

“There are several sovereignties in this country. First, the sovereignty of the American people, then the sovereignty nearest to us all—the sovereignty of the family, the absolute right of each family to control its affairs in accordance with the conscience and convictions of duty of the heads of the family. In the picture before us, that is bravely symbolized. I have no doubt the American people will always tenderly regard their household sovereignty, and however households may differ in their views and convictions, I believe that those differences will be respected. Each household, by following its own convictions, and holding itself responsible to God, will, I think, be respected by the American people.”

Source: The Life and Work of James A. Garfield by John Clark Ridpath

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:24 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 7, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Wayde Goodall on why people fall:

“There are reasons people make bad choices, and it doesn’t happen overnight. There is an evolution—one thought, decision, or move at a time. They decided to go to the wrong place, ask the wrong question, look at illegal or immoral materials, or have a conversation with someone they knew was compromising. The behavior began somewhere.

“I don’t believe this kind of “life-altering” failure just hits like a brick on some particular day. There is a process—sometimes it can be short-lived—sometimes it works on a person for years. Some call it temptation; others call it a hazard of success.”

Source: Why Great Men Fall

II.

Ringo Starr on Paul McCartney’s work ethic:

“The other side of that is—I was telling someone the other day—if Paul hadn’t been in the band, we’d probably have made two albums because we were lazy buggers.

“But Paul’s a workaholic. John and I would be sitting in the garden taking in the color green from the tree, and the phone would ring, and we would know, ‘Hey lads, you want to come in? Let’s go in the studio!’

“So I’ve told Paul this. He knows this story. We made three times more music than we ever would without him because he’s the workaholic, and he loves to get going. Once we got there, we loved it, of course, but, ‘Oh no, not again!’”

Source: BBC Interview: Ringo Starr - Talks about Change The World EP, Beatles, Joe Walsh & more

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:15 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 31, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Rumelt on listening:

“When another person speaks, you hear both less and more than they mean. Less because none of us can express the full extent of our understanding, and more because what another says is constantly mixing and interacting with your own knowledge and puzzlements.”

Source: Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

II.

Ram Charan on leadership:

“Leadership matters. It creates and harnesses the energy of people, gives them direction, and synchronizes their efforts. In fact, it is a leading indicator of a company’s prospects, unlike financial results, which tell you only where the company has already been. Strong leadership makes a good company better just as surely as weak leadership lowers its prospects and over time ruins it.”

Source: Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 24, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Sebastian Mallaby on forecasting the future:

“The revolutions that will matter—the big disruptions that create wealth for investors and anxiety for workers, or that scramble the geopolitical balance and alter human relations—cannot be predicted based on extrapolations of past data, precisely because such revolutions are so thoroughly disruptive. Rather, they will emerge as a result of forces that are too complex to forecast—from the primordial soup of tinkerers and hackers and hubristic dreamers—and all you can know is that the world in ten years will be excitingly different. Mature, comfortable societies, dominated by people who analyze every probability and manage every risk, should come to terms with a tomorrow that cannot be foreseen. The future can be discovered by means of iterative, venture-backed experiments. It cannot be predicted.”

Source: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future

II.

Jeffrey Sutton and Robert Sutton on the relationship between knowing and doing:

“There is only a loose and imperfect relationship between knowing what to do and the ability to act on that knowledge. Competitive advantage comes from being able to do something others can’t do. If you and colleagues learn from your own actions and behavior, then there won’t be much of a knowing-doing gap because you will be knowing on the basics of your doing, and implementing that knowledge will be substantially easier.”

Source: The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:35 PM
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Leading Thoughts for March 17, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Lawyer Michael L. King on identity:

“One of my happiest childhood memories is of a ride with my father in our old clunker of an automobile. A shiny red Cadillac whizzed past and daddy remarked how pretty and expensive it was. “Why do Cadillacs cost so much money?” I asked. “Is it the name?”

“Well,” he responded deliberately, “that’s part of it. But it’s also what that name means. It’s like your name. It says that you are a [product] of the Chessies, and the Taylors and the Kings, and that you are so very, very special.”

“Ever since, I have carried that praise with me. And I have never looked to another human being for my worth. My father convinced me that I didn’t need to. Even in my lowest times, I believed I was special.”

Source: “Fatherhood and the Black Man,” Wall Street Journal, June 6, 1988

II.

American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz on learning:

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”

Source: The Second Sin

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 10, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Julie Winkle Giulioni on career development:

“We have come to believe that career development is exclusively about the climb up and around the corporate structure. And because we’ve accepted this limited view of career development, we too are blind to the broader definition of the experience, the enormous possibilitities that are present, and the many other ways you as a manager can help employees succeed and grow.

“The result is we’ve inadvertently funneled people toward a ladder that can never accommodate them all—never mind that some of them don’t want to climb anyway. This promotes competition, confusion, and frustration among employees that frequently fuel unwanted turnover for you and your organization.”

Source: Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive

II.

Phil Nolan, former CEO of Eir, on distributed leadership:

“The concept of distributed leadership will keep you in touch with the environment. If you want to prepare people for this environment, you have to get leadership further down the organization. We generally tend to drive managing down the organization, but not leadership. As an organization, we have to prepare for acts of leadership further down the organization. I think that that is the hardest thing for us to do as people sitting at the top. It feels like an unnatural act.”

Source: A Time for Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:38 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 3, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

P. M. Forni on the art of going over your life:

“You reflect to review the past, take stock of the present, and build a better future. The learning you acquire from reflecting on your experiences and those of others will depend on your willingness to ask yourself tough questions and to stick around for the uncomfortable answers. Here you must exercise caution. Do not dwell on the past unless you can learn from it. Do not look back to hurt yourself or others. The point is to use the past in ways that are beneficial to you.”

Source: The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction

II.

Performance psychologist Jim Loehr on our moral operating system:

“The combination of personal beliefs, ideology, and strong emotion can completely overwhelm our capacity for rational thought and sound judgment. Once we declare a belief to be unfettered truth, we close the door to introspective inquiry. Rather than using our powers of reason to investigate weaknesses and inconsistencies in what well could be a faulty belief, we instead use our capacity for creative logic to garner support for what our gut tells us to believe. Once a belief is successfully dressed up as truth, we feel justified in whatever moral judgment or decision we render.”

Source: Leading with Character: 10 Minutes A Day to A Brilliant Legacy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 24, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former CEO of Best Buy, Hubert Jolly, on the value of more decisions to keep moving forward:

“A good plan is all we needed to create momentum and hope and get people engaged. Making decisions fast—like matching online prices and reinstating the employee discount—was crucial. It boosted people’s energy and created a sense of possibility and hope. What separates great leaders from good leaders is not the quality but the quantity of decisions. More decisions create more momentum and energy. These decisions will not all be good ones. But if you know how to ride a bicycle, then you know that it is much easier to correct course when you pedal your way forward than when you stand still.”

Source: The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

II.

Michael Mauboussin writes that how you improve your skill depends on where the activity lies on the continuum between pure luck and pure skill:

“In cases where there is a clear relationship between cause and effect, and in activities that are stable and linear, deliberate practice is the only path to improvement. For activities near the luck side of the continuum, a good process is the surest path to success in the long run. Accurate feedback is essential no matter where you are on the continuum. Improving your skill means constantly looking for ways to change your behavior, either because what you’re doing is wrong or because there’s a slightly better way of doing it. No matter what your profession or level of expertise, the chances are very good that accurate feedback can improve your performance.”

Source: The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 17, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Dov Seidman on why organizations can compete through culture:

“Culture can’t be copied. The collective experience of any group of people forms a unique narrative, a story that lives and breathes in the halls, offices, and factories of that enterprise. The way people connect, spark against one another to create new ideas or refine old ones, solve problems, and overcome adversity build the synapses that make an organization thrive or die, and no two groups conglomerate these experiences alike. Each is as unique as any family; the number of children can be the same but the ties that bind them will always be unique. Because of this singularity, culture, as an expression of the collective hows of a group or enterprise, gives us our greatest opportunity for differentiation.”

Source: How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything

II.

Forrester's Law:

“In complicated situations efforts to improve things often tend to make them worse, sometimes much worse, on occasion calamitous.”

Source: MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Jay W. Forrester quoted in The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 by George H. Nash

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 10, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Alan Deutschman on the effects of walking the walk:

“When you walk the walk, you reveal the ranking of your values. Martin Luther King Jr’s actions showed that nonviolence was his paramount value for the movement he led. Although he sought many important things for black people in America—equality, respect, power, prosperity—he wouldn’t sacrifice nonviolence to achieve any of them. Nonviolence was nonnegotiable. It was number one.”

Source: Walk the Walk: The #1 Rule for Real Leaders

II.

Thomas Sowell on intellectuals:

“It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon—that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.”

Source: Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 3, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Manfred Kets de Vries on developing emotional intelligence:

“Certain kinds of learning can’t be rushed; they have to be approached one step at a time. This is particularly true of becoming more emotionally attuned. To acquire this kind of knowledge, there are two secrets. The first is to have patience; the second is to be patient! Acquiring higher emotional intelligence—that is, gaining a better understanding of the psychodynamics of human behavior—is never instantaneous. Becoming more psychologically minded requires not only time, but also persistence. Patience and persistence can move mountains. They are the keys to becoming more emotionally astute.”

Source: The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People & Organisations

II.

John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison on the importance of serendipity:

“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas that these people carry with them and the connections they have. People carry tacit knowledge. You can’t learn brain surgery just from a text. Nor can you learn how to make tasty homebrew without watching someone else carry out the process. In both cases, you’ve got to stand next to someone who already knows and learn by doing. Tacit knowledge exists only in people’s heads. As edges arise ever more quickly, all of us must not only find the people who carry the new knowledge but get to know them well enough (and provide them with sufficient reciprocal value) that they’re comfortable trying to share it with us.”

Source: The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:55 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 27, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Amelia Dunlop on grace:

“Grace is what we offer to each other when we show kindness to the parts of our humanity that are in need of elevating. It is too easy to point to the failings of my colleagues around me and not extend grace. I find myself saying things like, ‘With grace, he might not have known that this was important.’ Or ‘If we extend grace, she might have a lot going on right now and simply missed the email.’ It is because we are human, not perfect, that we need to learn to extend grace to each other, something that I find very much needed every day in the workplace.”

Source: Elevating the Human Experience: Three Paths to Love and Worth at Work

II.

Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta on regaining trust:

“We tend to believe that trust, once broken, cannot be regained, when actually the truth is somewhat more complex. Trust, once broken, cannot easily be regained. We fall into this fallacy for two reasons. First, trust is so hard to regain that so few do it, making us think that broken trust is truly lost forever. Second, because trust is so hard to regain, it makes more sense to focus on protecting your reputation and avoiding losing trust in the first place. However, consider Boeing, Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, and Uber. All of these companies are battered but still in business. A trust betrayal does not necessarily mean game over. Still, be warned, trust regained looks different than trust that was never betrayed.”

Source: The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:09 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 20, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Kevin Roose on resisting machine drift:

“We’ve talked mainly about external forms of automation—industrial robots, machine learning, algorithms, back-office AI software. But there is a kind of internalized automation taking place inside many of us that, in some ways, is much more dangerous.

For a long time, all of this lifestyle automation seemed harmless. But eventually, I began feeling that surrendering my daily decisions to machines wasn’t making me happier or more productive. Instead, it was turning me into a different person—a shallower one, with more fixed routines and patterns of thought, and an almost robotic predictability in my daily life.”

Source: Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation

II.

Warren Bennis and Philip Slater on understanding the social territory:

“It is important for the leader to follow the maxim ‘know thyself’ so that he can control some of the pernicious effects he may create unwittingly. Unless the leader understands his actions and effects on others, he may be a carrier rather than a solver of problems.”

Source: The Temporary Society

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:18 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 13, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultant Larry Miller on the need for leaders to respond creatively to challenges:

“Both cultures and companies continue to progress so long as leaders recognize the challenges and respond creatively. Each successful response leads not to a condition of ease, but to a higher level of challenge, requiring yet another new and creative response. Creative response is the essential function of leaders. The moment leaders relax and rely on yesterday’s successful response in the presence of today’s challenge, the decline begins. It is natural for leaders in every stage to rely on responses they find most comfortable and to fail when they do not adopt innovative responses. Both the history of civilizations and of corporations demonstrate this relationship between the behavior of leaders and the cycle of growth and decline.”

Source: Barbarians to Bureaucrats: Corporate Life Cycle Strategies: Corporate Life Cycle Strategies

II.

Graham Duncan on the victim mentality:

“One great portfolio manager I know told the story of being driven somewhere by an analyst on a rainy night when a truck swerved and almost ran them off the road. “Why is stuff like this always happening to me?” the analyst instinctively responded. But to the portfolio manager, that response reflected a terrible mindset, whether on the road or in the market: a sense that the world is acting on you as opposed to your acting on the world. It is a mindset that is hard to change. But from what I’ve seen, great investors don’t have it. Instead, they’ve come to understand which factors in the market they can control and which factors they cannot.”

Source: The Playing Field blog post

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 6, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter on learning to be compassionate leaders:

“The people who pose the biggest challenge often provide the greatest opportunity for our own development and growth. In this way, people provide the critical fuel for us to become compassionate leaders. Nearly every situation is an opportunity to learn. And the more we learn, the better ewe become. When we experience challenges from the people we work with, we have a chance: w can either resist them or we can see the situation as an opportunity to practice our leadership and our compassion.”

Source: Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

II.

Professor John Kotter on the need for more leadership from more people:

“Although not everyone who seriously studies great figures would agree, we think it is very clear that if there was no Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Thomas Watson, the world would have evolved differently in some important ways. So the point is not that such people as inconsequential media figureheads, or had they not existed someone else would have played the same role, and just as brilliantly. Quite the contrary. The point is that we cannot depend upon mass producing heroic figures to solve humanity’s problems. There must be another way.

And there is. The solution is for many, many more people, regardless of where they sit in an organization or community, to step up and lead.”

Source: Change How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 30, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert Dilenschneider on knowing your strengths:

“By knowing your strengths and building on them in a hypercompetitive world, we can be more effective. You need to learn how to block out your weaknesses, prune them, and drive steadily from your strengths. That takes an enormous amount of discipline.”

Source: Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed

II.

Michael J. Fox on optimism:

“I started to notice things I was grateful for and the way other people would respond to difficulty with gratitude. I concluded that gratitude makes optimism sustainable. And if you don’t think you have anything to be grateful for, keep looking. Because you don’t just receive optimism, you can’t wait for things to be great and then be grateful for that. You’ve got to behave in a way that promotes that.”

Source: “Unbreakable” by Andrew Corsello, AARP Magazine December 2021/January 2022

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 23, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Michael Useem on what got you here won’t get you there or reinventing yourself as you move forward:

“The factors that led others to select you to manage a team, an office, or even an enterprise, are going to change as markets and methods evolve, pushing you to the edge, and making it vital to continually consider the additional leadership capacities required now. The best capacities of an earlier time thus remain informative but also incomplete for the challenges we face ahead.”

Source: The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead--And the Lessons for Us All

II.

Alaa Garad and Jeff Gold on how disruption and crisis require strategic learning across the organization:

“Leaders must engage in learning that is continuous and strategic, that has to include a willingness to embrace critical thinking to avoid … functional stupidity whereby leaders can prevent learning and change for the sake of maintaining and sustaining an order that they avoid justifying. In a similar manner, some leaders can be accused of hubris, show contempt for criticism from others and become capable of inflicting damage on their organizations.”

Source: The Learning-Driven Business: How to Develop an Organizational Learning Ecosystem

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:37 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 16, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi on leadership:

“The fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.”

Source: My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future

II.

Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas on fear:

“Fear is neither good nor bad. It is merely an emotion you feel when you get an outcome that is different from what you expect. The story we create about fear matters more that the fear itself. We control those stories and can craft either a negative one of doom and gloom or see fear as a cue for growth. When we are able to do the latter, fear becomes a path that leads to a better future.”

Source: Unfear: Transform Your Organization to Create Breakthrough Performance and Employee Well-Being

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 9, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Michael Dell on success:

“Success is not a straight line up. It’s fail, learn, try again, then (you hope) succeed. How successful you are is really a function of how well you deal with failure—and how much you learn from it. Many people don’t reach their greatest potential because they fear failure. In avoiding failure, they deprive themselves of a great teacher. Many others fall short because of a lack of opportunity, capital, knowledge, or skills. Persistence is an all-important quality on the road to success. (And success presents its own challenges, avoiding complacency being the first and biggest. Which is why, along with kaizen, PBNS—pleased but never satisfied—has been part of our culture since the beginning.)”

Source: Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader

II.

Gary Vaynerchuk on the value of soft skills to build a successful company:

“Modern society’s definition of a ‘smart business decision’ is disproportionately predicated on analytics. Business leaders tend to find safety in the ‘black-and-white.’ They find safety in the academics, math, hard data, and what looks good on spreadsheets.

“It’s harder to gauge the 30-, 60-, -90, -365, or even 730-day effectiveness of empathy, kindness, and self-awareness in an organization, but their results will play out. When you can eliminate fear from your organization, very good things happen.

“Unfortunately, the bias toward short-term metrics can also make emotional intelligence a ‘nice to have rather than a requirement. ”

Source: Twelve and a Half: Leveraging the Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Business Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:10 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 2, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Amelia Dunlop on elevating the human experience:

“Elevating the human experience is about acknowledging intrinsic worth as a human and nurturing growth through love. Sometimes the person we need to see most worthy of love is ourselves. Sometimes it is another person. Sometimes it is a group of people who have been unseen.”

Source: Elevating the Human Experience: Three Paths to Love and Worth at Work

II.

John Parker Stewart and Daniel J. Stewart on understanding effective leadership is something you learn as you go along:

“One of our wonderful colleagues, John Zorbini, often said that if leadership were a car, you would think it must be a classic red Ferrari with the way we traditionally talk about it—or even the way we all think to ourselves about it. We sometimes put the idea of leadership on a pedestal and speak about it reverently. It’s the idea that when you become a leader, you are blessed with instant knowledge, judgment, and prestige.

“But, Zorbini pointed out, if leadership really were a car, it would be a beat-up old truck. It would have dents and dings. Maybe the side panels would be different colors and the interior worn out, but it would have four wheels, move, and get the job done. It’s functional, but not glamourous, and the messiness of learning to lead is visible.”

Source: LEAD NOW!: A Personal Leadership Coaching Guide for Results-Driven Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:05 PM
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Leading Thoughts for November 25, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Pastor Will Johns on seeing the world through the lens of gratitude:

“Gratitude is a lens that changes the perception of everything in your life. Your world will be transformed. You will begin to see good things you’ve never noticed before. You will begin to feel joy for things in your life you knew were good but never fully appreciated. You will be able to count your blessings even during difficult circumstances. Gratitude will affect your essential perspective of and attitude toward life. And it will bring you the happiness you have been seeking your entire life. However, it doesn’t happen naturally.”

Source: Everything is Better Than You Think: How Gratitude Can Transform Your Life

II.

Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton on how the best leaders know how people contribute and actively look for reasons to express gratitude:

“It is about seeing good things happening and then expressing heartfelt appreciation for the right behaviors. On the flip side, managers who lack gratitude suffer, first and foremost, from a problem of cognition—a failure to perceive how hard their people are trying to do good work—and, if they’re encountering problems, what they are. These ungrateful leaders suffer from information deficit.”

Source: Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:41 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 18, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Liz Wiseman describes a practice of Impact Players:

“Impact Players practice a fluid model of leadership—leading on demand rather than by command. They take their cues from the situation, stepping up when needed, but when their stewardship is fulfilled, they step back and follow others with equal ease. While others wait for direction, Impact Players step up and lead.”

Source: Impact Players: How to Take the Lead, Play Bigger, and Multiply Your Impact

II.

Peter Senge on getting to the root of the issue:

“The bottom line of systems thinking is leverage—seeing where actions and changes in structures can lead to significant, enduring improvements. Often leverage follows the principle of economy of means: where the best results come not from large-scale efforts but from small well-focused actions. Our non-systematic ways of thinking are so damaging specifically because they consistently lead us to focus on low leverage changes: we focus on symptoms where the stress is greatest. We repair or ameliorate the symptoms. But such efforts only make matters better in the short run, at best, and worse in the long run.

“It's hard to disagree with the principle of leverage. But the leverage in most real-life systems, such as most organizations, is not obvious to most of the actors in those systems. They don't see the 'structures' underlying their actions.”

Source: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:10 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 11, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scientist Edward O. Wilson on the unification of knowledge:

“The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarship.”

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

II.

The late professor and writer David Foster Wallace on focus:

“Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

Source: This is Water

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:27 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 28, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Hagel on how emotions spread and thus how this dynamic can be used for or against us:

“Emotions have an interesting network effect: Once a critical mass of people feel a certain emotion, it tends to spread exponentially, both in terms of the number of people who feel it and in terms of intensity with which it is felt. As the emotional cascade takes hold, it becomes harder and harder to resist.”

Source: The Journey Beyond Fear: Leverage the Three Pillars of Positivity to Build Your Success

II.

Thomas Sowell on the media gimmick of turning questions of fact into questions of emotion:

“Emotions neither prove nor disprove facts. There was a time when any rational adult understood this. But years of dumbed-down education and emphasis on how people feel have left too many people unable to see through this media gimmick.”

Source: The Media's Role

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:04 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 21, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

The cellist, composer, and conductor, Pablo Casals, on being unique:

“Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you... You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work—we must all work—to make this world worthy of its children.”

Source: Joys and Sorrows: Reflections

II.

Frank Partnoy on the one word of wisdom in decision making – wait:

“Life might be a race against time, but it is enriched when we rise above our instincts and stop the clock to process and understand what we are doing and why. A wise decision requires reflection, and reflection requires a pause.”

Source: Wait: The Useful Art of Procrastination

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:40 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 7, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Elon Musk with a counterpoint to the idea to just trust the process:

“I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign. The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.”

Source: “Elon Musk's Mission to Mars,” Wired, October 21, 2012

II.

Canadian actor and director Antoni Cimolino on the value of the arts:

“One music teacher in a school does more good for our children than a truckload of computers — mere information, and the tools for processing it, are useless to people whom no one has taught to dream; bandwidth isn’t as important as mind width, and mind depth; training technicians will advance us not one whit unless we also nurture the imagination of potential visionaries.”

Source: Speech, Artistic Institutions: The Wellsprings of Our Spiritual, Emotional, and Intellectual Well-Being

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:50 PM
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Leading Thoughts for September 30, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Mark Sanborn on why culture matters:

“Culture is a corporate immune system that protects against variance, decline, or abandonment by identifying and combating threatening forces like toxic partners, disjointed processes, and bad decisions.”

Source: The Intention Imperative

II.

Thomas Berry on the need for a new story:

“It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The Old Story — the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it — is not functioning properly, and we have not learned the New Story.”

Source: The New Story: Comments on the Origin, Identification and Transmission of Values

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 23, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Alan Mulally on running a business in the midst of a crisis:

“Running a business is a design job. You need a point of view about the future, a really good plan to deliver that future, and then relentless implementation.

“You’ve got to trust the process. You need to trust and nurture your emotional resilience. Do you have a point of view about the future? Check. Is it still the right vision today? Check. Do you have a comprehensive plan to deliver that? Check. If you get skilled and motivated people working together through this process, you’re going to figure it out. But you’ve got to trust it.”

Source: American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

II.

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan on the need for leaders to create an organization that can confront reality:

“Exercising the power of realism requires an open and inquisitive mind, intense curiosity, the intellectual ability to sort out complexity, the ability to persuade others, and—undergirding it all—the courage of inner strength. People who lack these qualities can’t be considered leaders. They should look for other work.”

Source: Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 16, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach on the need for flexible thinking:

“We must dispel the notion that strong leaders don’t change their positions … or, dare we say, learn. Flipflopping when you have new information – flexing your thinking in an explicable way – is absolutely a hallmark of effective leadership in the face of accelerating change.

“Good leaders have an intuitive sense of things that must be true for their organizations to be successful and consistently check whether these conditions remain true in the external environment. They are on the lookout for things that could destroy the business model they have created. And if something changes that gives them pause, they aren’t afraid to make adjustments. When your business model may be at risk of implosion, it’s a very good thing that leaders changed their tune.”

Source: Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws

II.

Historian Adrian Goldsworthy on concerns over the growth of organizations:

“It is only human nature to lose sight of the wider issues and focus on immediate concerns and personal issues.… All human institutions, from countries to businesses, risk creating a similarly short-sighted and selfish culture.

“Success produces growth and, in time, creates institutions so large that they are cushioned from mistakes and inefficiency.

“In most cases it takes a long time for serious problems or errors to be exposed. It is usually even harder to judge accurately the real competence of individuals and, in particular, their contributions to the overall purpose.

“For the vast majority of people, their work is less open to the public gaze but is similar in that the real consequences of what they do are not obvious.”

Source: How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 9, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former vice president and corporate controller at The Boeing Company, Laurette Koellner, on our responsibility to self-empower and self-deploy:

“No one asked Amelia Earhart or Charles Lindbergh to do a solo flight across the Atlantic. No one asked Bill Boeing to build an airplane. They did these things because they wanted to. They did them because they wanted to open new frontiers. Similarly, we, as individuals, must decide how we are going to expand frontiers for ourselves — and for others who are working with us or for us. To do that, we must be prepared to do battle from time to time with the internal bureaucracy in our organizations. But even more than that, we have to be prepared to fight against our own inertia — or what one poet described as ‘mind-forges manacles.’”

Source: Speech, Managing Your Career: The Ultimate Solo Flight

II.

Author and writing teacher Julia Cameron on what it takes to improve:

“There will be many times when we won’t look good—to ourselves or anyone else. We need to stop demanding that we do. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

“Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.”

Source: The Artist’s Way

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 2, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultant Jeff Davidson on the need for breathing space:

“When your brain is always engaged, when your neurons are always firing, when you find yourself in a continual mode of reacting and responding, instead of steering and directing, the best and brightest solutions that you are capable of producing rarely see the light of day.

“You’re firmly caught in a trap without realizing that you are. Like everyone else, you’re adopting the same survival mechanisms, galloping along on the same treadmill, and defaulting into the same operational cycles. If new insights or fresh perspectives spring forth, will you, can you, actually act upon them? Do you have any chance of thinking new thoughts, or are you simply generating permeations of all your previous thoughts?”

Source: Speech, Taking Back Control of Our Days

II.

Philip Yancy on how art can help turn us from the world’s frivolities and given us time for reflection:

“Compared to any other time in history, we moderns scream and shout at each other. Listen to the music on any Top 40 station. Visit a museum of contemporary art. The world today contains no subtlety, no silence, no spaces.

“Spaces need filling. The father of cellist Yo-Yo Ma spent World War II in Paris, where he lived alone in a garret throughout the German occupation. In order to restore sanity to his world, he would memorize violin pieces by Bach during the day, and then at night, during blackout, he would play them alone in the dark. The sounds made by the reverberating strings held out the promise of order and hope and beauty. Later his son, Yo-Yo, took up the father’s advice to play a Bach suite from memory every night before going to bed. Yo-Yo Ma says, ‘This isn’t practicing; it’s contemplating. You’re alone with your soul.’”

Source: First Things, “What Art Can—and Can’t—Do” February 2009

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 26, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

French political philosopher and historian Alexis De Tocqueville on what democratic nations have to fear:

“I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers but rather with guardians. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Source: Democracy in America Volume 2, Fourth Book

II.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the need for prudence or commonsense:

“Of the four cardinal virtues — courage, temperance, justice, and prudence — it is the last — prudence — that the ancient philosophers traditionally placed at the moral apex. They did so because they understood, quite rightly, that without that practical, seemingly rather dull, virtue none of the others could be correctly applied. You have to know when and how to be brave, or self-controlled or fair-minded, in particular situations. Prudence — or what I would prefer to call a good, hearty helping of commonsense, shows the way.”

Source: Ronald Reagan: The Greatness of His Achievements, Speech delivered to The Heritage Foundation’s 25th Aniversary, December 10, 1997

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 19, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

April Rinne on how to thrive in a fast-paced world:

“In an upside-down world that coaxes, cajoles, and coerces you to run ever faster, your key to true success and growth is to do the opposite: learn how to run slower.

“The old script says we must run faster to keep up. But a world in flux has different race conditions because the finish line keeps shifting. Whether it’s business demands, home and family priorities, responsibilities to juggle, relationships to nurture, or relentless uncertainty to decipher: the faster we run, the more we run without resting or reflecting or even paying attention, the worse our results will be over time.”

Source: Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change

II.

American educational philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins, former chancellor of the University of Chicago, with a timely comment on a return to critical thought:

“As the Renaissance could accuse the Middle Ages of being rich in principles and poor in facts, we are now entitled to inquire whether we are not rich in facts and poor in principles. Our bewilderment has resulted from our notion that salvation depends on information. The remedy may be a return to the process of rational thought.”

Source: Robert Maynard Hutchins, Convocation Address 1933

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:37 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 12, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Mark C. Thompson and Bonita S. Thompson on taking action in a crisis:

“Challenges don’t come neatly packaged the way we planned them. So when you’re taken by surprise—and you don’t have the tools or support that you’d counted on—the first thing to think about is not what you’ve lost but what tools you still have. Start where you are. Figure out what you do have and use that to your advantage. When in doubt, take stock and then take action.

“People who are able to act during a crisis—even in the slightest way—are not as likely to experience post-traumatic stress syndrome. Action is what creates healing. By the same token, if we are overwhelmed by the size or difficulty of any task, taking some action toward the solution will mellow the overwhelm. We will be better equipped to manage our emotions after even a few small actions.”

Source: Admired: 21 Ways to Double Your Value

II.

John Wooden on self-control:

“Leadership starts with self-control. Remember, control of your organization begins with control of yourself. When you lose control, you sanction the same behavior for those under your leadership—the team. There is never an excuse for violating this imperative, and when you do, your credibility and consistency as a leader diminish accordingly.”

Source: Wooden on Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:58 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 5, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John Maxwell on how adversity introduces us to ourselves:

“Adversity always gets our attention. We can’t ignore it. It causes us to stop and look at our situation. And at ourselves if we have the courage. Adversity creates an opportunity for self-discovery. As the great Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat said, ‘Great suffering builds up a human being and puts him within the reach of self-knowledge.’”

Source: Leading in Tough Times

II.

Retired General Ronald Yates on the American tradition of total quality leadership:

“During the American Revolution, an officer in civilian clothes rose past a group of soldiers busy repairing a small fortification of rocks and tree limbs. Their commander was shouting instructions but making no attempt to help them. When the passer-by asked the commander why he wasn’t helping, the man in charge replied with great dignity, ‘Sir, I am a corporal!’

“The stranger apologized, dismounted, and proceeded to help the exhausted soldiers himself. When the job was completed, he turned to the corporal and said,

“‘Mr. Corporal, next time you have a job like this and not enough men to do it, go to your commander in chief, and I will come and help you again.’

“Too late, the corporal recognized General George Washington. Quality leadership also recognizes one person alone doesn’t make it happen – whether you’re the boss or out on the shop floor, you’re part of a team.”

Source: Total Quality Leadership: An American Tradition, Speech delivered November 1, 1994

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 29, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Motivational speaker Les Brown on having an indomitable spirit:

“There are negatively charged people who allow events to control their lives, and there are positively charged people who remain in control of their lives no matter what life throws at them. You want to be positively charged. “

Good things happen to positively charged people because they look for good things even when others see only the bad. Positively charged people are both powerful and empowering. They are leaders…. They believe in themselves and their abilities, and their enthusiasm and self-confidence affect everyone around them.”

Source: Live Your Dreams

II.

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casocha say opportunities are the result of doing something—by being motion:

“Opportunities do not float like clouds. They are firmly attached to individuals. If you’re looking for an opportunity, you’re really looking for people. If you’re evaluating an opportunity, you’re really evaluating people. If you’re trying to marshal resources to go after an opportunity, you’re really trying to enlist the support and involvement of other people.”

Source: The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:18 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 22, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former CEO of Honeywell International, Larry Bossidy, on the behaviors a leader should look for in his or her direct reports:

“Over the years, I’ve observed that certain behaviors, on the part of both the subordinate and the boss, are conducive to productive and rewarding relationships. Indeed, I’ll favor someone who exhibits the behaviors I expect over someone who doesn’t, even if the latter’s numbers are slightly better because I know the former has the potential to contribute more to the organization over time.”

Source: Harvard Business Review, “What Your Leader Expects of You”

II.

Marc and Samantha Hurwitz on the importance of followership on management performance as you move up the organizational ladder:

“There is a lot less forgiveness for poor followership at the middle-manager level because much more of the job is about building partnerships, setting an example, and working in the larger organizational context. Being technically strong is no longer enough to shine. At senior management levels, followership becomes the primary consideration. In our experience, senior executives have the highest levels of followership skill and the greatest conceptual understanding of it, and are most likely to acknowledge followership behaviors.”

Source: Leadership is Half the Story: A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership, and Collaboration

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:38 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 15, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Journalist George Leonard on mastery:

“How long will it take me to master Aikido?” a prospective student asks. ‘How long do you expect to live?’ is the only respectable response.

“Ultimately, practice is the path of mastery. If you stay on it long enough, you’ll find it to be a vivid place, with its ups and downs, is challenges and comforts, its surprises, disappointments, and unconditional joys. You’ll take your share of bumps and bruises while traveling – bruises of the ego as well as of the body, mind and spirit – but it might well turn out to be the most reliable thing in your life. Then, too, it might eventually make you a winner in your chosen field, if that’s what you’re looking for, and then people will refer to you as a master. But that’s not really the point.

“What is mastery? At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.”

Source: Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment

II.

General Gordon Sullivan and Michael Harper on what to do in uncharted territory:

“The old maps, the old ways of doing business, will not work in today’s new territories. Simply improving an existing process will not solve a problem. This is the failure of the ‘R-words’—reshaping, reengineering, reinventing, and reposturing. Doing the same thing you have always done—no matter how much you improve it—will get you only what you had before. The old ways lead to the same old failures.”

Source: Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:06 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 8, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Louis L’Amour on pausing to take stock of yourself and ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become?

“Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.”

Source: The Walking Drum

II.

Peter Drucker on personal responsibility:

“It is the mark of a mature person to ask: ‘What do I want to get out of life?’—and to know that one gets out only as much as one puts in. Tomorrow it will be the mark of a free person to ask: ‘What do I want to get out of organizations?’—and to know that one gets only as much as one puts in.”

Source: The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 1, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Former Chairman and CEO of Pepsico, Indra Nooyi, on assuming positive intent:

“My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him, I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, ‘Maybe they are saying something to me that I’m not hearing.’ So, assume positive intent has been a huge piece of advice for me.”

Source: Fortune, “The Best Advice I Ever Got”

II.

Director, producer, and screenwriter Steven Spielberg on collaboration. In the interview he was asked, “What keeps you excited about making movies?”:

“I get that same queasy, nervous, thrilling feeling every time I go to work. That’s never worn off since I was 12 years-old with my dad’s 8-millimeter movie camera. The thrill hasn’t changed at all. In fact, as I’ve gotten older, it’s actually increased, because now I appreciate the collaboration.

“When I was a kid, there was no collaboration. It’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.

“My job was constantly to keep a movie family going. I’m blessed with the same thing that John Ford and Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock were blessed with, a mini-industry very similar to the one from the golden era of Hollywood, where it was the same people making movies with you each and every time. And it makes life so much more enjoyable when you get to go home to your family and go to work with your other family. ”

Source: The New York Times, “The Adventures of Spielberg: An Interview” by Mekado Murphy, December 20, 2011

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 24, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ron Friedman on how experience begets automaticity and automaticity stifles learning. And the need for the right kind of practice to improve and grow:

“Working on our weaknesses is unpleasant, stressful, and hard. But it’s a process that does something crucial for skill development: it breaks the spell of automaticity.

“By facing up to our shortcomings and tackling them head-on, we can’t help but pay close attention to the links between our actions and the underwhelming outcomes they produce. The discomfort we feel drives us to search for novel solutions and experiment with different paths, making performance breakthroughs more likely.

“Experts don’t achieve mastery through more repetition. They do so by targeting weaknesses, pursuing stretch goals, and relentlessly pushing the bounds of their abilities. It’s the only way to improve at a task you already perform reasonably well and elude the grasp of automaticity.”

Source: Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success

II.

Former Navy Seal Brent Gleeson on the difference between planning and preparation:

“Planning is certainly part of preparation, but it’s much more than that. Preparation means you know the plan, but you also have the functionality and skill to pivot when things don’t go according to that plan.

“[The best leaders] are not coming up with better ways to plan. They’re coming up with better ways to be. They combine real-time data and transparent team feedback to make informed decisions.”

Source: TakingPoint: A Navy SEAL’s 10 Fail Safe Principles for Leading Through Change

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:46 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 17, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Leadership coach Ruchira Chaudhary on the difference between mentors and coaches:

“Mentors provide direction to their mentees, giving them the opportunity to become more like them. Coaches, though, don’t offer directions or even answers. A good coach instead helps the coachee come up with their own answers. As a coach and leader, you—unlike the mentor—do not provide advice from a distance. You are right there where all the action is taking place. You are observing, providing feedback, sometimes nuggets of wisdom and encouragement, sometimes nudging, sometimes directing, and often times proactively seeking them out to help them be a better version of themselves. You (ideally) lead these interactions—not your coachee. In essence, a mentor guides your (career of life) journey, whereas a coach guides your (current) practice.”

Source: Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership

II.

Evolutionary biologist Rebecca Heiss on how our inter-gender instincts can influence our perceptions of leadership roles:

“As soon as we are reminded that women, even powerful, responsible, qualified leaders, are mothers, our sex instinct fires up ancient associations that hold women back. But the flip side of gender bias must also be given due consideration.

“It’s not about which gender is ‘better’ in leadership roles. The reality is we need the traditional skill sets of both males and females. Leadership is a genderless domain, but recognizing how our instincts have shaped both men and women to feel threatened by a woman who is ‘taking our status’ or by a stay-at-home dad who ‘isn’t a valuable resource contributor’ is essential in intervening when our instincts might lead us down a dangerous path.

“Our sex instinct has deeply sculpted our perceptions of gender in ways that logically no longer apply today.”

Source: Instinct: Rewire Your Brain with Science-Backed Solutions to Increase Productivity and Achieve Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 10, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

D. Michael Lindsay observed that the best leaders have shown excellent management of the transitional events in their lives:

“The challenge with life is that we have to live it moving forward, but we only really understand it looking back. Every day offers the promise of preparing us to best respond to the next hinge moment of our lives.

Change moves us out of our previous settled time; transition moves us into the next one. While changes are significant to our lives, it is the success of our transitions that will determine our satisfaction and effectiveness in the days and years to come.

The best way to prepare for an unseen transition is to keep in mind how close one could be and to develop the virtues—such as humility, courage, and self-control—we need to make good choices when the hinge moment presents itself.”

Source: Hinge Moments: Making the Most of Life's Transitions

II.

Bruce Feiler on our personal narratives:

“Each one of us carries around an unspoken set of assumptions that dictate how we expect our lives to unfold. These expectations come from all corners and influence us more than we admit. We’ve been led to believe that our lives will always ascend, for example, and are shocked to discover they oscillate instead. Our society tells us we should be basking in progress, but our experience tells us we are beset by slip-ups. Might this gap help explain the anxiety so many of us feel?”

Source: Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change in a Nonlinear Age

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:19 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 3, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Andrew and Nada Kakabadse and Linda Lee-Davies on knowing when to act as well as being in the right place at the right time:

“What makes a leader great in one situation could make them incompetent in another and the increasing pace of change in today’s business environment means then that different qualities will not only be needed at different times but also more quickly and drastically. Perhaps then, it is the ability to provide the appropriate leadership qualities and skills at the appropriate time that s secret to being great. Perhaps, it is the ability to which from the transactional needs of the business to the transformational thinking which links the followers toward the future which is key to successful timing.”

Source: Leading for Success: The Seven Sides to Great Leaders

II.

Pete Davis on a culture of infinite browsing:

“I’ve come to believe that this is the defining characteristic of my generation: keeping our options open.

The Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has a great phrase for what I’m talking about: liquid modernity. We never want to commit to any one identity or place or community, Bauman explains, so we remain like liquid, in a state that can adapt to fit any future shape. And it’s not just us—the world around us remains like liquid, too. We can’t rely on any job or role, idea or cause, group or institution to stick around in the same form for long—and they can’t rely on us to do so, either. That’s liquid modernity: It’s Infinite Browsing Mode, but for everything in our lives.”

Source: Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:50 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 27, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Teresa Amabile on how to kill creativity:

“Organizations routinely kill creativity with fake deadlines or impossibly tight ones. The former create distrust and the latter cause burnout. In either case, people feel overcontrolled and unfulfilled—which invariably damages motivation. Moreover, creativity often takes time. It can be slow going to explore new concepts, put together unique solutions, and wander through the maze. Managers who do not allow time for exploration or do not schedule in incubation periods are unwittingly standing in the way of the creative process.”

Source: Harvard Business Review: How to Kill Creativity

II.

Authors John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison say we often don’t even know what we are looking for or the questions to ask to get there, so it calls for a different approach:

“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas that these people carry with them and the connections they have. People carry tacit knowledge. … You’ve got to stand next to someone who already knows and learn by doing. Tacit knowledge exists only in people’s heads. As edges arise ever more quickly, all of us must not only find the people who carry the new knowledge but get to know them well enough (and provide them with sufficient reciprocal value) that they’re comfortable trying to share it with us.”

Source: The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:19 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 20, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert Heinlein on dying cultures:

“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named…but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

Source: Friday (1982)

II.

Ben Horowitz on what you get is based on who you are:

“Trying to screen for ‘good people’ or screen out ‘bad people’ doesn’t necessarily get you a high-integrity culture. A person may come in with high integrity but have to compromise it to succeed in your environment. People become the culture they live in and do what the have to do to survive and thrive.”

Source: What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 13, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Joann Lublin on how parenting can make parents better leaders and bosses:

“A high proportion of younger mothers and fathers believe that parenthood makes them better leaders, another study revealed. About 55% of parents under 35 “strongly agree” that’s true—compared with 28% of ones over 45, a 2019 survey of 1,003 individuals with and without children stated.

Motherhood transforms many women into better leaders. Power Moms from all generations reported to me that they had become better bosses by raising families. Tapping skills honed as time-starved parents, they set priorities well, multitasked, and delegated effectively. They also managed with empathy. It’s a quality greatly valued by companies because they must operate in an increasingly complex and diverse global economy.”

Source: Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life

II.

Malcolm Gladwell on the birth of revolutions:

“Revolutions are invariably group activities. Rarely does someone start a revolution alone. Revolutions are birthed in conversation, argument, validation, proximity, and the look in your listener’s eye that tells you you’re on to something.”

Source: The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:38 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 6, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Susan McPherson on making a genuine connection with others:

“We’re living in a loneliness epidemic that is causing declines in physical and mental health, as well as decreased work satisfaction and performance. It’s clear that the art of connecting is lost. We’re talking, Zooming, Tweeting, and texting, but we’re not feeling a sense of connection. People have lost their sense of belonging and purpose in their careers and their lives. Why? Because we’ve come to lean too hard on our digital lives. Virtual connections are not the end; they are the means to an end—an authentic relationship with depth, be it professional or personal.”

Source: The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Business Relationships

II.

To uncover your what drives you, Victoria Labalme offers the Desert Island Question:

“If you were on a deserted island dying and you knew you weren’t going to make it … that this was the end… but there was a young person with you—someone you cared about deeply … and if—before you died—you could give that young person only one piece of advice about life and how they might best live theirs … what would that one piece of advice be?”

Source: Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknow and Unlock Your Hidden Genius

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:14 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 29, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Phil Knight on competition:

“Emotion would be fatal. I needed to remain cool. I thought back on my running career at Oregon. I’d competed with, and against, men far better, faster, more physically gifted. Many were future Olympians. And yet, I’d trained myself to forget this unhappy fact. People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that’s only true of people who can forget the competition. The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past. You must forget that internal voice screaming, begging, ‘Not one more step!’ And when it’s not possible to forget it, you must negotiate with it. I thought over all the races in which my mind wanted one thing, and my body wanted another, those laps in which I’d had to tell my body, ‘Yes, you raise some excellent points, but let’s keep going anyway…’”

Source: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

II.

Randy Komisar on personal success:

“Considering personal risk forces us to define personal success. We may well discover that the business failure we avoid and the business success we strive for do not lead us to personal success at all. Most of us have inherited notions of "success" from someone else or have arrived at these notions by facing a seemingly endless line of hurdles extending from grade school through college and into our careers. We constantly judge ourselves against criteria that others have set and rank ourselves against others in their game. Personal goals, on the other hand, leave us on our own, without this habit of useless measurement and comparison.

Work hard, work passionately, but apply your most precious asset—time—to what is most meaningful to you. What are you willing to do for the rest of your life? does not mean, literally, what will you do for the rest of your life? That question would be absurd, given the inevitability of change. No, what the question really asks is, if your life were to end suddenly and unexpectedly tomorrow, would you be able to say you’ve been doing what you truly care about today? What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life? What would it take to do it right now?”

Source: The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:42 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 22, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Economist Tim Harford on the problem of using statistical metrics as a proxy to control or as a target to be improved:

“Social scientists have long understood that statistical metrics are at their most pernicious when they are being used to control the world, rather than trying to understand it. Economists tend to cite their colleague Charles Goodhart, who wrote in 1975: ‘Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.’ (Or, more pithily: ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’) Psychologists turn to Donald T. Campbell, who around the same time explained: ‘The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.’”

Source: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics

II.

Jon Acuff on the things we tell ourselves—our soundtracks:

“One of the greatest mistakes you can make in life is assuming all of your thoughts are true. We tend to believe that if it’s in our head, it must be accurate. If I think it, it must be real. Despite the wild things our thoughts have told us over the years, we trust them. When you start to ask a soundtrack this question—is it true?—I promise you’ll be shocked by how many lies you have cluttering up your head.”

Source: Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:55 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 15, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Yale sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis reflects on what we are likely to see as we move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic period:

“If history is a guide, it seems likely that consumption will come back with a vengeance. Periods of plague-driven austerity have often been followed by periods of liberal spending. If the Roaring Twenties following the 1918 pandemic are a guide, the increased religiosity and reflection of the immediate and intermediate pandemic periods could give way to increased expressions of risk-taking, intemperance, or joie de vivre in the post-pandemic period. The great appeal of cities will be apparent once again. People will relentlessly seek opportunities for social mixing on a larger scale in sporting events, concerts, and political rallies. And after a serious epidemic, people often feel not only a renewed sense of purpose but a renewed sense of possibility.”

Source: Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live

II.

Authors Robert Galford and Anne Drapeau on the correlation between trust and self-knowledge:

“Being a trusted leader is about knowing yourself. Knowing your strengths, your shortcomings, what gives you pleasure, what annoys the hell out of you. Knowing why you go to work, why you react as you do under pressure, what scares you, and what makes you proud. The true trusted leaders we know all have one thing in common, if nothing else: they know themselves very well. Self-knowledge is fundamental to be a rusted leader for a simple reason: trust is built on honesty.”

Source: The Trusted Leader: Bringing Out the Best in Your People and Your Company

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:29 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 8, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

The late economic historian professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Carlo M. Cipolla on the five laws of human stupidity:

1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us.
2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Source: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

II.

Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor on vision:

“The only way to succeed in the marketplace today—the marketplace of individuals or products or services or ideas—is to know your own story and to follow it into the future. Define yourself by someone else’s benchmarks, immerse yourself in someone else’s possibilities, and you become the thing you define yourself by and immerse yourself in. Measure yourself against your own rate of change and you stay inside your own story. That way, when the other side ceases to exist, you still have a reason to go on. External and lateral competition is the distraction. Internal and vertical competition is the game. The real battle is against yourself.”

Source: The Visionary's Handbook: Ten Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:44 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 1, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Joseph T. Hallinan on how the tail begins to wag the dog when it comes to our perceptions of reality:

“Once we have an opinion about how something should be, that expectation often colors our perception of how that thing actually is. When we look, we look with a purpose—we don’t look at something; we look for something. We tend to see what we expect to see and to experience what we expect to experience.”

Source: Kidding Ourselves: The Hidden Power of Self-Deception

II.

Paul Zak on how fear-based leadership undermines our goals and dumbs us down:

“The science shows that fear-based management is a losing proposition because people acclimate to fear quickly. Fear-inducing leaders must ramp up threats to increase productivity, but there are only so may threats one can make.

“Fear is a fine short-term motivator but a poor long-term one. Worse than having no effect, when leaders spew out threats at work, it engenders learned helplessness in which people just give up trying to do anything.”

Source: Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 25, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Fred Kofman on what it means to be a transcendent leader:

“Transcendent leaders work to align the individual purposes of those under them into a larger collective purpose that makes each individual larger as well. They understand that if you want to make accountability and cooperation occur at the same time, you need to inspire people and create a culture of commitment and connection to a larger purpose. When this happens, people look beyond their silos and their small decision-making issues. They align their best efforts with the organization’s in natural ways that other systems can’t lead them to do. It is the difference between rowing and sailing. A boat moved by mere muscle is no match for one moved by wind. A boat propelled by the wind flows in harmony with the natural forces. An organization that moves forward by formal authority is like a rowboat. One moved by transcendent purpose is like a sailboat with the wind behind it, filling its sails.”

Source: The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership

II.

Scientist and mathematician Richard Hamming on the purpose of education:

“Teachers should prepare the student for the student’s future, not for the teacher’s past.”

Source: The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:30 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 18, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert D. Kaplan on the dangers of peace:

“Avoiding tragedy requires a sense of it, which in turn requires a sense of history. Peace, however, leads to a preoccupation with presentness, the loss of the past and a consequent disregard of the future. That is because peace by nature is pleasurable, and pleasure is about momentary satisfaction. In an era of extended domestic peace, those who deliver up pleasures are the power brokers. Because pleasure is inseparable from convenience, convenience becomes the vital element in society.

“In an era when peace is taken for granted, the electronic media increasingly adopt the aspirations of the mob. The mob, like the television camera, has no historical memory and is entirely reductive: it considers only what is within its field of vision, not the complicating facts beyond it.”

Source: The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War

II.

American evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers on self-deception:

“Together our sensory systems are organized to give us detailed and accurate view of reality, exactly as we would expect if truth about the outside world helps us to navigate it more effectively. But once this information arrives in our brains, it is often distorted and biased to our conscious minds. We deny the truth to ourselves. We project onto others traits that are in fact true of ourselves—and then attack them! We repress painful memories, create completely false ones, rationalize immoral behavior, act repeatedly to boost positive self-opinion, and show a suite of ego-defense mechanisms.”

Source: The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 11, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Mike Hayes on delegating and an insight as to why we lead:

“We don’t need to assert the greatest amount of authority that we’re entitled to. Our organizations are better served by training the people below us to one day take our place. The more we can pass down the chain of command, the better equipped our organizations will be, with more capable leaders throughout.”

Source: Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning

II.

Mark Thomson on leading transformation:

“You are not going to succeed as a CEO if you try to impose a set of ideas or a new culture Day 1. It just doesn’t work. It’s got to be owned. It’s more a question of trying to pull it out of the organization rather than push it in, and that meant trying step-by-step to encourage a deeper conversation about the future.”

Source: As quoted in The CEO Test

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 4, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Performance psychologist Jim Loehr on motivated reasoning:

“The facts are facts, but we ignore, alter, or otherwise twist them to allow us to continue doing what we are doing. Once we learn we can get what we want by altering the logic chain, by embracing ‘facts’ that align with the outcome we want and dismissing those facts that don’t, no behavior is safe. No value, no belief is safe.”

Source: Leading with Character: 10 Minutes A Day to A Brilliant Legacy

II.

David C. Valliere on the need for entrepreneurs to think and to think differently:

“Thinking is hard work. If you tell people they are thinking, they will love you. But if you actually make them think, they will hate you. Thinking carefully and precisely is very hard work – perhaps even harder than the physical labor of digging ditches, or the emotional labor of smiling at retail customers. Chess grandmasters can burn thousands of calories as they sit there, motionless, or occasionally lifting one hand to move a small piece weighting only a few grams. Because with their minds, they are expending huge amounts of energy. Most people will go to great lengths to avoid working so hard. They look for shortcuts and simplifications. They rely on ‘common wisdom’ and shared ‘rules of thumb’ without doing the hard work of checking things out for themselves. And these are the shortcuts that sink new entrepreneurs.”

Source: Entrepreneurial Thinking: Think Different!

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:08 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 25, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

English philosopher John Stuart Mill on the pursuit of happiness:

“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.

The enjoyments of life are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.”

Source: Autobiography

II.

Writer Jay Parini on E. L. (Edgar Lawrence) Doctorow’s contribution to our understanding of the past:

“What Doctorow knew, and demonstrated in book after book, is that the past is very much alive, but that it’s not easily accessed. We tell and retell stories, and these stories illuminate our daily lives. What ‘really’ happened – in family stories, in public tales – often eludes our grasp. And yet we need to know, or think we do, what happened, as it keeps happening again. History is never really ‘over,’ or so we discover, as we loop through the same issues again and again.

He showed us again and again that our past is our present, and that those not willing to grapple with “what happened” will be condemned to repeat its worst errors.”

Source: CNN: E.L. Doctorow’s Gift

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 18, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

British philosopher Owen Barfield giving a gentle provocation to new perspectives:

“There may be times when what is most needed is, not so much a new discovery or a new idea as a different ‘slant’; I mean a comparatively slight readjustment in our way of looking at the things and ideas on which attention is already fixed.”

Source: Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry

II.

Anders Ericsson, Michael Prietula, and Edward Cokely on the making of an expert:

“The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort. You will need a well-informed coach not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself. Above all, if you want to achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise.

Moving outside your traditional comfort zone of achievement requires substantial motivation and sacrifice, but it’s a necessary discipline.”

Source: Harvard Business Review, The Making of an Expert

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 11, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Historians Will and Ariel Durant on the need for educated citizens:

“Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that ‘you can’t fool all of the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

If equality of educational opportunity can be established, democracy will be real and justified. For this is the vital truth beneath its catchwords: that though men cannot be equal, their access to education and opportunity can be made more nearly equal. The rights of man are not right to office and power, but the rights of entry into every avenue that may nourish and test a man’s fitness for office and power.”

Source: The Lessons of History

II.

Retired professor William Kilpatrick on the importance of teaching morals and why teaching leadership is critical to leadership development

“None of us wants to go to untrained doctors, or fly with untrained pilots, or have untrained soldiers protect our country, but for some reason, we have come to believe that one can be a good person without any training in goodness. We have succumbed to a myth that claims that morality comes naturally, or at most, with the help of a little reasoning. But it seems increasingly clear that these metaphors and the models that flow from them aren’t working. The ‘natural’ thing to do in most situations is to take the easy way out. The most perfectly rational plan of action is to always put yourself first.”

Source: Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong: And What We Can Do About It

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:58 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 4, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University Todd Gitlin, on the experience of media:

“The media are, in relation to social reality, fun-house mirrors, selective in their appetites, skewed in their imagery. The news is not in any simple way a ‘mirror’ on the world; it is a conduit for ideas and symbols, an industrial product that promotes packages of ideas and ideologies, and serves, consequently, as social ballast, though at times also a harbinger of social change. The news is a cognitive warp.”

Source: Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives

II.

Thomas Sowell on the media gimmick of turning questions of fact into questions of emotion:

“Emotions neither prove nor disprove facts. There was a time when any rational adult understood this. But years of dumbed-down education and emphasis on how people “feel” have left too many people unable to see through this media gimmick.”

Source: The Media’s Role

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:14 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 28, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Charles Sykes on victimization:

“A formula for social gridlock: the irresistible search for someone or something to blame colliding with the unmovable unwillingness to accept responsibility. Now enshrined in law and jurisprudence, victimism is reshaping the fabric of society, including employment policies, criminal justice, education, urban politics, and, in an increasingly Orwellian emphasis on ‘sensitivity’ in language. A community of interdependent citizens has been displaced by a society of resentful, competing, and self-interested individuals who have dressed their private annoyances in the garb of victimism.”

Source: Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character

II.

Tom Wheeler on how we are not alone in facing our challenges:

“Limiting our horizons by ignoring our history denies us an essential appreciation: that the greatness of a people comes not from a retreat into halcyon memory but from the advances they make as they respond to newly created challenges.”

Source: From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:39 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 21, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brent Gleeson on resilience:

“A growth mindset is the bedrock of resilience. With a growth mindset you know that skills and success come from hard work and dedication, and the status quo is never enough. People with this mindset are comfortable being uncomfortable. Transparent feedback is not just accepted but craved, and setbacks are just another bump in the road fueling the fire to push forward. ”

Source: Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life

II.

Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay on the Unread Library Effect or how to help people understand that they are relying upon borrowed knowledge and moderate their views:

“Explicitly invite explanations, ask for specifics, follow up with pointed questions that revolve around soliciting how someone knows the details, and continue to openly admit your own ignorance. In many conversations, the more ignorance you admit, the more readily your partner in the conversation will step in with an explanation to help you understand. And the more they attempt to explain, the more likely they are to realize the limits of their own knowledge. This strategy not only helps moderate strong views, it models openness, willingness to admit ignorance, and readiness to revise beliefs.”

Source: How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:49 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 14, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Elaine Kamarck on presidential responsibility:

“Despite of all the trappings of power—the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue, Camp David, Air Force One, never having to sit in a traffic jam (ever!)—the president is in charge of an entity over which he has fairly limited power. This is, of course, exactly the way the Founding Fathers wanted it. And yet, try telling that to the American public or to the world when something goes really wrong. As we have seen, large-scale governmental failure becomes presidential failure, whether the president likes it or not.”

Source: Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again

II.

Brad Stulberg and Steve Magnes on how to be passionate:

“Mindfully living with passion starts with realizing that passion in and of itself doesn’t start off as either good or bad; it just is—a powerful emotion rooted in our biology and psychology. It’s not something we magically find, but something that we develop by following our interests and incrementally devoting more of our time and energy to them. The next step to mindfully living with passion is to become aware of its dark side. Only by understanding the pitfalls of obsessive and fear-driven passion—and taking deliberate steps to avoid them—does passion gain the potential to be productive. But avoiding pitfalls is not enough. An equal challenge is bucking current trends that favor instant gratification and instead actively adopting the mastery mind-set: maintaining drive from within; focusing on the process over results; not worrying about being the best but worrying about being the best at getting better; embracing acute failure for chronic gains; practicing patience; and paying full attention to our pursuits.”

Source: The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:00 PM
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Leading Thoughts: Pass Them On

BRITISH statesman Benjamin Disraeli said, “The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation.” The ideas of others have the power to slow us down and consider perspectives beyond our own. Left alone, our thoughts become too narrow—too vulnerable to blind spots. This learning process may deepen our own thoughts, give us concepts to build on, and start great conversations. It’s also good to know that we are not alone and that others have lived through the same things that we now experience.

We share two ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog or sign up for our newsletter.

Read them and pass them on!

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 7, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Geoff Colvin on self-knowledge:

“The best performers observe themselves closely. They are in effect able to step outside themselves, monitor what is happening in their own minds, and ask how it’s going. Researchers call this metacognition—knowledge about your own knowledge, thinking about your own thinking. Top performers do this much more systematically than others do; it’s an established part of their routine.”

Source: Talent Is Overrated

II.

Charlie Munger on turning yourself into a learning machine:

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help—particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”

Source: University of Southern California Law School Commencement Speech, May 13, 2007

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 24, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Frank Wilczek on the truth of science:

“Science tells us many important things about how things are, but it does not pronounce how things should be, nor forbid us from imagining things that are not. Science contains beautiful ideas, but it does not exhaust beauty. It offers a uniquely fruitful way to understand the physical world, but it is not a complete guide to life.”

Source: Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality

II.

Cistercian monk Michael Casey on the need to listen:

“In the short term it is easier to interact by assuming a surface calm. Mostly we do not want to listen to pressures building up inside others; we prefer to hope they will muddle through, and (anyhow) we have enough worries on our own account. Perhaps the most necessary of all skills today is the timeless knack of being able to listen to others, allowing them to tell their story, knowing that telling it will ease their burden and help them become stronger.”

Source: Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 17, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Margaret Heffernan on what it takes to make your predictions more thoughtful and accurate:

“Ordinary people who were open-minded, educated, prepared to change their minds, humble, and attentive could gain real insight and awareness into what might happen in the next year or so. These were people who were prepared to see multiple, not single, causes of events and who were comfortable updating or changing their initial expectations.”

Source: Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future

II.

George Schultz, who turned 100 on December 13th, on creating a learning environment:

“I always have found that if I could create an environment around me in which everybody felt they were learning, I would have a hot group. I have always tried to include people in what I was doing, to encourage them to sat what they think, to let them see the problems that were confronting us all, and to create an atmosphere in which everyone could feel at the end of the day, or the end of a week or a month, that he or she had learned something.”

Source: Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 10, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Morgan Housel on finding the sensible balance between optimism and pessimism:

“Optimism is usually defined as a belief that things will go well. But that’s incomplete. Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery. And in fact you know it will be filled with misery. You can be optimistic that the long-term growth trajectory is up and to the right, but equally sure that the road between now and then is filled with landmines, and always will be. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

“Optimism and pessimism can coexist. If you look hard enough you’ll see them next to each other in virtually every successful company and successful career. They seem like opposites, but they work together to keep everything in balance.”

Source: The Psychology of Money

II.

Arthur Jensen on what brings out genius:

“Genius requires giftedness (consisting essentially of some special aptitude or talent, such as mathematical, spatial, musical, or artistic talent). But obviously there are other antecedents that are elusive to us. Nonetheless, we do know of at least two key attributes, beyond ability, that appear to function as catalysts for the creation of that special class of behavioral products specifically indicative of genius. They are productivity and creativity.”

Source: Giftedness and Genius: Crucial Differences found in Intellectual Talent: Psychometric and Social Issues

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:39 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 3, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Wright Thompson on doing the work:

“More and more today, we don’t want to do the work or take the chances required for greatness, and we try to fix all those shortcuts on the back end with marketing and branding—modern, fancy words than mean lie.”

Source: Pappyland: The Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last

II.

Arsène Wenger on coaching:

“The coach’s role is to make the player understand everything that serves the interests of the game. To do this, he must speak to the child within each player, to the adolescent he was and the adult he is now. Too often a coach tends only to speak to the adult, issuing commands for performance, victory, reflection, to the detriment of the child who is playing for pleasure.”

Source: Wenger: My Life and Lessons in Red and White

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:01 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 26, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writing to his parents from prison on gratefulness:

“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. It’s very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe to others.”

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1943)

II.

Diana Butler Bass on finding gratitude:

“Practicing gratitude calls us to better lives, and a better world. And begin before you are ready. Even when a million reasons to not feel grateful stand in your way. That is when gratitude is at its best.

“Everyday there are reasons not to feel grateful and not to practice gratitude. Terrible, distressing, painful, and awful things happen all the time. The emotions of thanks elude us, and it is easy to choose ingratitude. Yet when I watch the news and fear grips my heart about whatever comes next, when a friend is diagnosed with cancer, or when a loved one dies, that Bible verse, the one Albert Schweitzer alluded to, the one I memorized as a teenager, calls toward a better way: ‘In everything give thanks.’”

Source: Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 19, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Gary Burnison on anticipating what lies ahead:

“You don’t need a crysal ball to anticipate. Rather, you need to be acutely attuned to what’s happening around you and in the world at the present moment. Once you see reality clearly, then—and only then—can you make the leap to extrapolate the meaning. You move from seeing only “this is what is happening now” to the lens “what this means for the future.” In other words, based on what you know now, what are he consequences—both positive and negative?”

Source: Leadership U: Accelerating Through the Crisis Curve

II.

Ross Ellenhorn on personal accountability:

“That’s how life works for most of us most of the time: we authentically take control of our existence only sparingly, and mainly pretend we’re not in control when we actually are. All the theatrics stop, however, when we head twowaard personal change.

Change always makes you face your aloneness and accountability. That’s an unavoidable fact about change: on the road from where you are to where you want to be—no one else—putting one foot in front of the other.”

Source: How We Change (And Ten Reasons Why We Don’t)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:39 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 12, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Margaret Wheatley on dealing with change and developing new capacities:

“It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another.”

Source: “When Change Is Out of Control” in Human Resources in the 21st Century

II.

Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness on the downside of obsessive passion:

“Those who are most focused on reaching some external barometer of success are often the same people who struggle most to enjoy it. That’s because they’ll always crave more. More money. More fame. More medals. More followers.”

Source: The Passion Paradox

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:00 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 5, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Neil Postman on information overload:

“Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it applies, no pattern in which it fits, when there is no higher purpose that it serves.”

Source: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

II.

Tod Bolsinger on what is leadership:

“Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world. We know we are facing a leadership challenge if it requires us to grow as leaders and as a people, to be transformed int something more than we have been—without losing our core identity—in order to accomplish the mission we have been called to.”

Source: Canoeing the Mountains

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:10 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 29, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Carl Schorske on the need to think not just about but to think with history; to employ the materials of the past and the configurations in which we organize and comprehend them to orient ourselves in the living present::

“In most fields of intellectual and artistic culture, twentieth-century Europe and America learned to think without history. The very word “modernism” has come to distinguish our lives and times from what had gone before, from history as a whole, as such. Modern architecture, modern music, modern science—all these have defined themselves not so much out of the past, indeed scarcely against the past, but detached from it in a new, autonomous cultural space, The modern mind grew indifferent to history, for history, conceived as a continuous nourishing tradition, became useless to its projects.”

Source: Thinking with History

II.

Robert D. Kaplan on the connection between past, present, and future:

“The greater the disregard of history, the greater he delusions regarding the future. The classics help counter … historical amnesia. Machiavelli writes:

…anyone wishing to see what is to be must consider what has been : all the things of this world in every era have their counterparts in ancient times … since these actions are carried out by men who have and have always had the same passions, which, of necessity, must give rise to the same results.

Confucius put it more simply:

Being fond of the truth, I am an admirer of antiquity.”

Source: Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 22, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Entrepreneur and investor Sam Altman on the importance of value:

“All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people.

What this means is that if you want to be a great company some day, you have to eventually build something so good that people will recommend it to their friends—in fact, so good that they want to be the first one to recommend it to their friends for the implied good taste. No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.”

Source: The Only Way to Grow Huge

II.

East Rock Capital co-founder Graham Duncan on taking responsibility for your life:

“One great portfolio manager I know told the story of being driven somewhere by an analyst on a rainy night when a truck swerved and almost ran them off the road. ‘Why is stuff like this always happening to me?’ the analyst instinctively responded. But to the portfolio manager, that response reflected a terrible mindset, whether on the road or in the market: a sense that the world is acting on you as opposed to your acting on the world. It is a mindset that is hard to change. But from what I’ve seen, great investors don’t have it. Instead, they’ve come to understand which factors in the market they can control and which factors they cannot.”

Source: The Playing Field

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:24 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 15, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Fritjof Capra on making change in a living organization:

“A machine can be controlled; a living system, according to the systemic understanding of life, can only be disturbed. In other words, organizations cannot be controlled through direct interventions, but they can be influenced by giving impulses rather than instructions. To change the conventional style of management requires a shift of perception that is anything but easy, but it also brings great rewards. Working with the processes inherent in living systems means that we do not need to spend a lot of energy to move an organization. There is no need to push, pull, or bully it to make it change. Force or energy are not the issue; the issue is meaning. Meaningful disturbances will get the organization’s attention and will trigger structural changes.”

Source: The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living

II.

Christina Sommers and Sally Satel on the perils of overthinking:

“[There is] the common assumption that intense reflection on troubling thoughts and emotions is rewarded by a clearer vision. What [Stanford University psychologist, Susan] Nolen-Hoeksmea and others have repeatedly shown, however, is that overthinking tends to “impose a lens that shows a distorted, narrow view of the world.” Things that are wrong, not the solutions, are what come most sharply into view. “When you are sad,” Nolen-Hoeksmea explains, “your brain has greater access to sad thoughts and memories, and you are more likely to interpret events in a sad way.” Neural connections between memories with similar emotional color are activated even when we think about depressing incidents that have no apparent relationship to those memories.

As a result, pessimism snowballs, motivation flags, concentration suffers, and it becomes harder to make a decision. Negativity drives other people away, confirming our worst fears about being unlikable or uninteresting. Problems seem overwhelming. These distortions often lead to bad decision making or verbal outbursts we later regret.”

Source: One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:00 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 8, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Hierarchies are not the problem, says Morris Shechtman:

“The criticism often leveled at hierarchies has nothing to do with the essential structure and function of the pyramidal model. These problems all come from one source, conflict avoidance. Hierarchies become dysfunctional when decision-makers don’t want to confront redundancy and incompetence and instead bury the problems in another organizational layer. Or they find it too painful to confront difficult but key people who use legitimate roles and functions in illegitimate, destructive ways. Hierarchies don’t do damage to businesses any more than alcohol creates problem drinking. Structures don’t create problems; people do.”

Source: Working Without a Net: How to Survive and Thrive in Today's High Risk Business World

II.

Robert Pirsig on dynamic learning or being at one with the process:

“Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad workman and compare his expression with that of a craftsman whose work you know is excellent and you’ll see the difference. The craftsman isn’t ever following a single line of instruction. He’s making decisions as he goes along. For that reason he’ll be absorbed and attentive to what he’s doing even though he doesn’t deliberately contrive this. His motions and the machine are in a kind of harmony. He isn’t following any set of written instructions because the nature of the material at hand determines his thoughts and motions, which simultaneously change the nature of the material at hand. The material and his thoughts are changing together in a progression of changes until his mind’s at rest at the same time the material’s right.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 1, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Tasha Eurich on the two aspects of self-awarenesss:

“Put simply, self-awareness is not one truth. It’s a complex interweaving of our views and others’ views of us. Indeed, according to studies on this topic, these two different perspectives, rather than capturing redundant information, may simply capture different aspects of who we are. If we have only internal or only external self-awareness, we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle.”

Source: Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think

II.

Robert Quinn on real leadership:

“Leadership is not about results. It is about commitment. The entire management literature fails to understand this. Leadership authors do not understand that leadership means “Go forth and die.” If hey did understand it, they would not be enticed to write about it—because people do not want to hear this message. Most people want to be told how to get extraordinary results with minimum risk.”

Source: Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Results

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:10 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 24, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Steve Farber on doing what you love in the service of people:

“It doesn’t matter whether the leaders are in the front or the rear. What matters is the way they are leading the pack. In either case, the leaders are serving other members. The leaders in the front are forging the path, providing direction, and making it easier for others to go where the pack needs to travel. The leaders in the rear are providing support. They are watching over the pack and ensuring that no one is left behind. There might even be some leaders in the middle of the pack because here’s the thing about leaders: they serve others no matter where they find themselves.”

Source: Love is Just Damn Good Business

II.

Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness on how our passion can eventually lead us astray:

“Those who are most focused on reaching some external barometer of success are often the same people who struggle most to enjoy it. That’s because they’ll always crave more. More money. More fame. More medals. More followers.

Researchers have found that regardless of the field, individuals who display obsessive passion are more likely to engage in unethical behavior and are at a higher risk for anxiety, depression, and burnout. Their relationship with their passion is likely to erode, and their overall life satisfaction is poor.

They become so obsessed, so focused on and tied to external results, that nothing else matters. It’s not that they are no longer passionate. It’s just that they are no longer passionate about baseball, or energy, or leading a company, or scientific discovery. They become passionate about results, fortune, fame, and winning.”

Source: The Passion Paradox

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 17, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jay-Z on excellence:

“I think excellence is being able to perform at a higher level over and over again. You can hit a half-court shot once. That's just the luck of the draw. If you can consistently do it through eleven championships like Bill Russell, then that's excellence. Having success for a year or two—that's being hot. We call that hot. That's being in demand for a short span of time. Excellence is being able to perform at a higher level for a long period of time.”

Source: Oprah’s Master Class: The Jay-Z Podcast

II.

Philosophers Willard Van Orman Quine and J.S. Ullian on the difference between the desire to be right and the desire to have been right:

“The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.”

Source: The Web of Belief

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 10, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar, on the importance of self-leadership:

“Do not feel alone, small or inconsequential. Too often leadership is associated with one great person giving an inspiring sermon to the masses and leading them to greater heights.

Even if all of us cannot own billions or rule the world—what we can do for certain is we can touch the life of one person at a time—that is what is humanly possible and that is the great equalizer—whether you are the richest woman in the world or an ordinary man making a living you have the same power to truly touch someone with kindness, compassion, and care.

What I am saying is that in this global village, on a daily basis we are not fighting world wars or military conquest. Every single day we are fighting the consequences of simple human negligence, complacency, lack of compassion, inequality. What we need is not a Leader to lead the Masses—we need Leadership of the Self.”

Source: Convocation Address at Calcutta University, October 5, 2010

II.

Prime Minister of Albania and former basketball player, Edi Rama on teamwork:

“The other team had a superior culture, less focused on individual talent, more on team strength. Culture comes from values and from leadership. To the eternal champions the victory was everything and they were ready to accept any part they had to for the sake of winning; victory was naturally very important to us also, but less important than the performance of each individual. And that meant we were not a team. So we lost. The other team won. Because they were a team. Simple.”

Source: Winners: And How They Succeed

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 3, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

How to relive stress. It’s not what you instinctively do:

“According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective stress-relief strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby. (The least effective strategies are gambling, shopping, smoking, drinking, eating, playing video games, surfing the Internet, and watching TV or movies for more than two hours.)”

Source: The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

II.

Sleep helps to beat negativity:

“Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine.

In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like “cancer.” But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like “sunshine” or “basket.”

Source: NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:05 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 27, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

On how to be happy even in a crazy, unpredictable world:

“Some one in five U.S. adults is taking at least one drug for a psychiatric problem; nearly one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking antidepressants at any given time… You can’t escape it: when scientists test the water supply of Western countries, they always find it is laced with antidepressants, because so many of us are taking them and excreting them that they simply can’t be filtered out of the water we drink every day.

Twenty-two different studies have, in the years since, found that the more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more depressed you will be. Twelve different studies found that the more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more anxious you will be.

People who achieved their extrinsic goals didn’t experience any increase in day-to-day happiness—none. They spent a huge amount of energy chasing these goals, but when they fulfilled them, they felt the same as they had at the start…. But people who achieved their intrinsic goals did become significantly happier, and less depressed and anxious. You could track the movement. As they worked at it and felt they became (for example) a better friend—not because they wanted anything out of it but because they felt it was a good thing to do—they became more satisfied with life.”

Source: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

II.

On how thinking about death can lead to a good life:

“Thinking about death can actually be a good thing. An awareness of mortality can improve physical health and help us re-prioritize our goals and values, according to a new analysis of recent scientific studies. Even non-conscious thinking about death—say walking by a cemetery—could prompt positive changes and promote helping others.

Kenneth Vail of the University of Missouri says “the awareness of death can motivate increased expressions of tolerance, egalitarianism, compassion, empathy, and pacifism. One major implication of this body of work, Vail says, is that we should “turn attention and research efforts toward better understanding of how the motivations triggered by death awareness can actually improve people’s lives, rather than how it can cause malady and social strife. The dance with death can be a delicate but potentially elegant stride toward living the good life.”

Source: How Thinking About Death Can Lead to A Good Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:30 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 20, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay call it the Unread Library Effect. Most of us don’t know all we think we know. We rely on borrowed knowledge, ideas and beliefs. We haven’t really checked it out for ourselves. Asking people why they think something can open up their thinking to new knowledge:

“Explicitly invite explanations, ask for specifics, follow up with pointed questions that revolve around soliciting how someone knows the details, and continue to openly admit your own ignorance. In many conversations, the more ignorance you admit, the more readily your partner in the conversation will step in with an explanation to help you understand. And the more they attempt to explain, the more likely they are to realize the limits of their own knowledge. This strategy not only helps moderate strong views, it models openness, willingness to admit ignorance, and readiness to revise beliefs.”

Source: How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

II.

George Simon on how people can and do manipulate the truth:

“One of the most subtle forms of distortion is being deliberately vague. This is a favorite tactic of manipulators. They will carefully craft their stories so that you form the impression that you’ve been given information but leave out essential details that would have otherwise made it possible for you to know the larger truth.”

Source: In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 13, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Tom Rath on self-absorption:

“Life is not about you. It’s about what you do for others. The faster you are able to get over yourself, the more you can do for the people who matter most. Yet external forces keep pulling you toward self-centered pursuits. From books pushing “happiness” to advertisements convincing you that consumption leads to adoration, these messages tempt you to focus inward. That is all a trap (and a load of crap).”

Source: It’s Not About You: A Brief Guide

II.

Scientist Marie Curie on the importance of self-improvement:

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Source: Pierre Curie: With Autobiographical Notes

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:36 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 6, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Alan Weiss on the fact that most fears are learned as are leadership behaviors, and we have to understand the causes:

“We cannot create improved behavior contingently, that is, simply patching up leaks and putting on band-aids. We have to prevent the fearful behavior in the future by eliminating the probable causes. The therapist’s admonition to “face our fears” is really an attempt to find the cause of them.”

Source: Fearless Leadership

II.

Brian Resnick on what is reality:

“Our brains work hard to bend reality to meet our prior experiences, our emotions, and our discomfort with uncertainty. This happens with vision. But it also happens with more complicated processes, like thinking about politics, the pandemic, or the reality of climate change.”

Source: “Reality” Is Constructed By Your Brain. Here’s What That Means, And Why It Matters

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:49 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 30, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jocko Willink on subordinating your ego, building relationships, and winning the long game:

“Ego is like reactive armor; the harder you push against it, the more it pushes back. You might be afraid that if you subordinate your ego, you will get trampled. But that normally doesn’t happen because subordinating your ego is actually the ultimate form of self-confidence. That level of confidence earns respect. So while the initial thought or feeling might be that you backed down, you have actually shown you have the strength and confidence to give the other person credit, and they will recognize and respect that confidence, either consciously or subconsciously.”

Source: Leadership Strategy and Tactics

II.

Writer Ralph Marston on the power of confident humility:

“Whatever you’re doing, a sense of superiority will make you worse at it. Humility, on the other hand, will make you better. The moment you think you’ve got it all figured out, your progress stops. Instead, continue to advance and improve by reminding yourself how much more there will always be to discover. Confidence is positive and empowering, but arrogance is deadly. Be confident, but not at the expense of your respect for others.”

Source: Blog Post Confident Humility

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:37 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 23, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

James MacGregor Burns on the changing dynamic of political leadership:

“American leadership went into decline after the revolution. The leaders were generally the same men, many far-famed and even venerated, but they were projected now into a different situation. They had been united behind transcending goals. Now they were divided over mundane policies. They had offered a striking example of bold, collective—even transforming—leadership. Now they were expected to practice piecemeal, transactional leadership.”

Source: Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World

II.

Frank Partnoy on the need for reflection:

“Life might be a race against time, but it is enriched when we rise above our instincts and stop the clock to process and understand what we are doing and why. A wise decision requires reflection, and reflection requires a pause.”

Source: Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:36 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 16, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Scientist and programmer Michael Nielsen on developing disciplined work habits:

“Effective people are proactive and take personal responsibility for the events in their lives. They form a vision of how they want their life to be, and work toward achieving that vision. They identify problems in their lives, and work toward solutions to those problems.”

Source: Principles of Effective Research

II.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the destructive nature of the victim culture:

“It leads people to see themselves a objects, not subjects. They are done to, not doers; passive, not active. The results are anger, resentment, rage, and a burning sense of injustice. None of these, however, ever leads to freedom, since by its very logic this mindset abdicates responsibility for the current circumstances in which one finds oneself. Blaming others is the suicide of liberty.”

Source: Essays on Ethics

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:45 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 9, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Michael Fanuele on the “right-brain, left-brain” myth:

“While different regions of our brain exert motor control over specific parts of our body, thinking is a far messier process. In matters of decision-making, there is no ‘right brain’ or ‘left brain’— there is only a brain, an integrated and complex organ in which feeling informs thinking; in fact, good thinking is impossible without feeling.”

Source: Stop Making Sense: The Art of Inspiring Anybody

II.

Robert Gates on presidential decision making:

“Personalities matter hugely in decision making, even at the top. Some presidents are more manipulative than others. FDR, Nixon, Reagan, and, I suspect, Trump, knowingly foster disagreements among their senior advisors—or at least tolerated them—because such infighting actually gives the president more latitude in making decisions. Whereas a unified front among advisors tends to box in the present, divided counsel lets him pick and choose among options.”

Source: Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:42 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 2, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Two signs hanging on the wall of the Burnley Football Club training facility in Burnley, Lancashire, England:

“Only the person who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.”

“In a real team, the instinct for individual self-promotion is realized through the pursuit of the team goal.”

Source: Alastair Campbell in Winners and How They Succeed

II.

Earl Nightingale on service:

“Never before in the history of the world have human beings been so interdependent. It is as impossible to live without serving others as it would be to live if others were not constantly serving us. And this is good. The more closely knit this interdependence becomes, the greater will be human achievement. We need each other, and we literally cannot live without each other. Every time we strike a match, drink a glass of water, turn on the lights, pick up the telephone, drive our car, put on our clothes, take a bath, mow the lawn, or go fishing, we’re being served by other human beings. But remember this: Whatever you seek in the form of rewards, you must first earn in the form of service to others. All attempts to sidestep this law will end in failure, frustration, and ultimately, demoralization.”

Source: Lead the Field

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:13 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 25, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan on humility:

“The more you can contain your ego, the more realistic you are about your problems. You learn how to listen and admit that you don’t know all the answers. You exhibit the attitude that you can learn from anyone at any time. Your pride doesn’t get in the way of gathering the information you need to achieve the best results.”

Source: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

II.

Michael Fanuele on inspiring others and finding the balance between emotions—the fuel of inspiration—and reason—it’s speedbump:

“Use your reason and logic and the full force of your big brain in figuring out what’s right and wrong, what you want to do and what you don’t, in composing your strategy. Bu them, when it comes to moving people, to inspiring, I’m sorry, but Passion and Reason are indeed enemies. You’ll have to find the right balance between adding one and subtracting the other.”

Source: Stop Making Sense: The Art of Inspiring Anybody

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 18, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Feynman on living with uncertainty:

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”

Source: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman

II.

On the challenge shifting from solo to shared credit:

“Getting beyond blame requires a shift in thinking and culture. Getting beyond ego requires a shift in behavior and attitude. Leadership, with all its attention and perks, does attract people with aggrandized self-esteem. They mistake the collected efforts of many people for their own and expect solo credit. They are jealous of attention given to others. They are “me”—centric. Everyone has an ego—after all, it serves certain purposes—thought when overgrown, the inflated ego defies surgical extraction.”

Source: You’re It: You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:39 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 11, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Rocket scientist and law professor Ozan Varol on the need for critical thinking:

“Companies fail because they stare at the rearview mirror and keep calling the same plays from the same playbook. Instead of risking failure, they stick with the status quo. In our daily lives, we fail to exercise our critical-thinking muscles and instead leave it to others to draw conclusions. As a result, these muscles atrophy over time. Without an informed public willing to question confident claims, democracy decays and misinformation spreads. Once alternative facts are reported and retweeted, they become the truth. Pseudoscience becomes indistinguishable from real science.”

Source: Think Like a Rocket Scientist

II.

Albert Gray, a life insurance executive at Prudential, on the importance of habits:

“Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. People form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones. You are the kind of person you are because you have formed the habit of being that kind of person, and the only way you can change is through habit.”

Source: The Common Denominator of Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:24 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 4, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Consultant Robert J. Thomas on learning to think like a leader:

“If you desire to be a leader, you have to think like one. At the heart of that process is a form of deliberate practice that would look familiar to students and teachers of music, chess, or any of a number of complex, highly intentional pursuits—most emphatically in terms of approaches like the Suzuki Method. In this case, deliberate practice revolves round crafting stories that contain statements and directions that are consistent with the core ideas about interactive leadership.”

Source: Crucibles of Leadership

II.

Consultant Alain Hunkins on learning to lead:

“The idea that effective leaders can plot their progression on a straight line is a myth. Progress is messy. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it feels like failure. You need to learn to accept the messiness and all the feelings associated with it. It’s a surefire sign that you’re growing. Exceptional leaders are exceptional learners—imperfect people who take each mistake along he way and figure out what they need to learn from it. Then, they do something to get back on course and keep moving.”

Source: Cracking the Leadership Code

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:23 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 28, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Chief Technology Officer at Better.com, Erik Bernhardsson on ruthless prioritization:

“What I have come to believe is that: prioritization is the most value creating activity in any company. Generating ideas and executing things is of course also important! But what I've seen to set apart great teams from good is a brutal focus on prioritization. This means generating an absurd amount of ideas and throwing 99% of them out of the window, to focus on the 1% that have the highest impact.”

Source: Never Attribute to Stupidity That Which Is Adequately Explained by Opportunity Cost

II.

Alex Kantrowitz on the burden of execution:

“Drowning in execution work, today’s companies devote themselves to refinement, not invention. Their leaders might desire to run inventive cultures, but they do not have the bandwidth. So they deliver a limited set of ideas from the top, and everyone else executes and polishes.”

Source: Always Day One

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:37 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 21, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

The New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks, on educating yourself:

“The biggest way most colleges fail is this: They don’t plant the intellectual and moral seeds students are going to need later, when they get hit by the vicissitudes of life. If you didn’t study Jane Austen while you were here, you probably lack the capacity to think clearly about making a marriage decision. If you didn’t read George Eliot, then you missed a master class on how to judge people’s character. The wisdom of the ages is your inheritance; it can make your life easier.

My worry is that, especially now that you’re out of college, you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff.

The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit—the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.

In college, you get assigned hard things. You’re taught to look at paintings and think about science in challenging ways. After college, most of us resolve to keep doing this kind of thing, but we’re busy and our brains are tired at the end of the day. Months and years go by. We get caught up in stuff, settle for consuming Twitter and, frankly, journalism. Our maximum taste shrinks. Have you ever noticed that 70 percent of the people you know are more boring at 30 than they were at 20?”

Source: A Commencement Address Too Honest to Deliver in Person

II.

Management consultant and educator Gary Hamel, on seeing the future:

“Companies fail to create the future not because they fail to predict it but because they fail to imagine it. It is curiosity and creativity they lack, not perspicuity. So it is vitally important that you understand the distinction between “the future” and “the unimagined,” between knowing what’s next and imagining what’s next.”

Source: Leading the Revolution

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:57 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 14, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Kevin Kelly, the founder of WIRED magazine, recently turned 68 and offered 68 lessons on life. Here are six:

“Learn how to learn from those you disagree with or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love, keep asking them, “Is there more?” until there is no more.’

The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth to flossing.

Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.

If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.

Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist, you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.”

Source: 68 Bit of Unsolicited Advice

II.

Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour on not comparing yourself:

“You are driven by your heart, you’re driven by your talent, and you’re driven by your instinct. And if you start to question and look at what people are doing to the left of you or to the right of you, you are going to lose that clarity of thought. Listen to the information. In the end it has to come from who you are. Own your decisions and own who you are but without apology.”

Source: Anna Wintour MasterClass: Anna Wintour Teaches Creativity and Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:15 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 7, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Lance Secretan on doing the hard thing and playing to people’s strengths instead of complaining about their weaknesses:

“We cannot guide the brilliance of others by getting everyone to do something the same way; we guide the brilliance of others by playing to their strengths, teasing greatness from them by honoring their gifts, and making it as easy as possible for them to be brilliant at what they do. Sameness and conformity are easier to manage, but their price is mediocrity and demotivation. On the other hand, even though guiding brilliance sometimes feels like putting sock on an octopus, it is a gift to the soul—inspiration.”

Source: Inspire: What Great Leaders Do

II.

English journalist and author Clifford Longley on the purpose of life:

“Western civilization suffers from a strong sense of moral and spiritual exhaustion. Having constructed a society of unprecedented sophistication, convenience and prosperity, nobody can remember what it was supposed to be for. Just enjoying it does not seem to be enough. Indeed, enjoyment as an end in itself quickly turns to ashes in the mouth. Not only is it boringly bland, it is even more boringly purposeless. There is more to human life than comfort, entertainment, and the avoidance of suffering. Or there ought to be.”

Source: From the introduction to Faith in the Future by Jonathan Sacks

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:53 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 30, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Astronaut Chris Hadfield on the power of knowing what could go wrong:

“In order to stay calm in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, all you really need is knowledge. … Feeling ready to do something doesn’t mean feeling certain you’ll succeed, though of course that’s what you’re hoping to do. Truly being ready means understanding what could go wrong—and having a plan to deal with it. … Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on—to study it, dissect it, tease apart all it’s components and consequences—really works. After a few years of doing that pretty much daily, you’ve forged the strongest possible armor to defend against fear: hard-one competence.”

Source: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

II.

Richard P. Feynman on leaving room for doubt so that the door is open to critical thinking and learning:

“A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false but rather how likely it is to be true or false. … Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.”

Source: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 23, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

John W. Gardner on dealing with the divisions in our society:

“No society can successfully resolve its internal conflicts if its only asset is cleverness in the management of these conflicts. It must also have compelling goals that are shared by the conflicting parties; and it must have a sense of movement toward these goals. All conflicting groups must have a vision that lifts their minds and spirits above the tensions of the moment.”

Source: Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too?

II.

In a tribute to John Foster Dulles who died on May 24, 1959, Walter Lippmann comments on the duty of public servants:

“Perhaps the highest function of a public servant in a free and democratic society is to preserve its oneness as a community while he fights the battle which divide it. John Foster Dulles never lost sight of that. He never forgot, as so many public men do, that after the issue which is up for debate is settled, those who took part in the debate must still live and work together. That is the reason way among his countrymen there is no rancor, and why the sorrow of his opponents and critics is genuine.”

Source: Dulles: A Tribute, Today and Tomorrow, May 26, 1959

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 16, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jack Trout on the simple approach to success:

“Trying harder, believing in yourself, walking on fire, and saying, ‘yes I can’ are not steps up the ladder of success. The surprising truth is that success does not spring from anything inside yourself at all. Success is something given to you by others.

When you focus on yourself, you haveonly one ticket on he race. By expanding your horizon to include others, you greatly incree the odds in your favor. In other words, success is finding a horse to ride. And you only find tha horse when you shrug off your preoccupation with your inner self—when you open your mind to the outside world, when you search for success outside of yourself. The good news is, success is all around you.”

Source: The Power of Simplicity by Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin

II.

Jack Welch on communicating simply:

“For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple. For a large organization to be simple, its people must have self-confidence and intellectual self-assurance. Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood. Real leaders don’t need clutter. People must have the self-confidence to be clear, precise, to be sure that every person in their organization—highest to lowest—understands what the business is trying to achieve. But it’s not easy. You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simpleminded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.”

Source: Harvard Business Review: Speed, Simpicity, Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:43 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 9, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Management professor and social philosopher Charles Handy on the inevitability of paradox:

“We need a new way of thinking about our problems and our futures. My suggestion is the management of paradox, an idea which is itself a paradox, in that paradox can only be “managed” in the sense of coping with.

The more turbulent the times, the more complex the world, the more paradoxes there are. We can, and should, reduce the starkness of some of the contradictions, minimize the inconsistencies, understand the puzzles in the paradoxes, but we cannot make them disappear, or solve them completely, or escape from them. Paradox has to be accepted, coped with, and made sense of, in life, in work, in the community, and among nations.”

Source: The Age of Paradox

II.

John Silber, former President and Chancellor of Boston University, on the role of journalists:

“Like all of us, journalists are subject to the temptations of power. Power tends to corrupt them no less than it corrupts politicians. And as the fourth estate has become vastly more powerful through television, the journalists in the electronic media should be aware of their increasing vulnerability to corruption. Many journalists come to think of themselves not so much as objective reporters but as the loyal opposition. But this is not the proper function of reporters. The adversary relationship is not a relationship of objectivity. To be in opposition may be the duty of a politician or a party, but it is a violation of the responsibility of the journalist, which is to report on what happens as objectively and as dispassionately as possible.”

Source: Straight Shooting: What’s Wrong with America and How to Fix It

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:37 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 2, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

A philosopher at Oxford University, Toby Ord explains the risks we are taking here on spaceship earth:

“We have done many things to exacerbate the risk: some that could make pandemics more likely to occur, and some that could increase their damage. Thus even “natural” pandemics should be seen as a partly anthropogenic risk. Our population now is a thousand times greater than over most of human history, so there are vastly more opportunities for new human diseases to originate. And our farming practices have created vast numbers of animals living in unhealthy conditions within close proximity to humans. This increases the risk, as many major diseases originate in animals before crossing over to humans. Examples include HIV (chimpanzees), Ebola (bats), SARS (probably bats) and influenza (usually pigs or birds). Evidence suggests that diseases are crossing over into human populations from animals at an increasing rate.

“Modern civilization may also make it much easier for a pandemic to spread. The higher density of people living together in cities increases the number of people each of us may infect. Rapid long-distance transport greatly increases the distance pathogens can spread, reducing the degrees of separation between any two people. Moreover, we are no longer divided into isolated populations as we were for most of the last 10,000 years. Together these effects suggest that we might expect more new pandemics, for them to spread more quickly, and to reach a higher percentage of the world’s people. ”

Source: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

II.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt on fear in a time of crisis:

“This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

Source: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1933

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 26, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Bill Welter and Jean Egmon on the difficulty on truly seeing the world as it is:

“Paradigms are wonderful shortcuts as we think about the world, but they are deadly if they are not attuned with reality. All of us are bombarded with increasing waves of data and sensory inputs, and whether we realize it or not, we have become increasingly resistant. It’s not so much a case of having to pay attention to the news of the world as it is a case of knowing when to change our filters so that the important stuff comes in.”

Source: The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions, and Solve Problems

II.

The American entrepreneur and investor Sam Altman on persistence and luck:

“A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are. People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.

“Ask for what you want. You usually won’t get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well. Almost always, the people who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I’m going to figure them out”, and mean it, go on to succeed. They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.”

Source: How To Be Successful

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:19 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 19, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Erik Larson commenting on Winston Churchill’s belief that leaders should make people feel “loftier, stronger, and, above all, more courageous:”

“Recognizing that confidence and fearlessness were attitudes that could be adopted and taught by example, Churchill issued a directive to all ministers to put on a strong positive front. ‘In these dark days the Prime minister would be grateful if all his colleagues in the Government, as well as high officials, would maintain a high moral in their circles; not minimizing the gravity of events, but showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his domination.’”

Source: The Splendid and the Vile

II.

Jared Diamond on dealing with a crisis:

“Typically when one is first plunged into a state of crisis, one feels overwhelmed by the sense that everything in one’s life has gone wrong. As long as one remains thus paralyzed, it’s difficult to make progress dealing with one thing at a time. Hence a therapist’s immediate goal in the first session—or else the first step if one is dealing with an acknowledgment crisis by oneself or with the help of friends—is to overcome that paralysis by means of what is termed ‘building a fence.’ That means identifying the specific things that really have gone wrong during the crisis, so that one can say, ‘Here, inside the fence, are the particular problems in my life, but everything else outside the fence is normal and OK.’ Often, a person in crisis feels relieved as soon as he or she starts to formulate the problem and to build a fence around it. The therapist can then help the client to explore alternative ways of coping with the specific problem inside the fence. The client thereby embarks on a process of selective change, which is possible, rather then remaining paralyzed by the seeming necessity of total change, which would be impossible.”

Source: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:49 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 12, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Erich Bühler on the persistence of old mental models:

“We generally stick to old mental models until new ways of thinking appear. During the change process, however, we tend to see the new only through the old lens. When the first motorized vehicles were built in the nineteenth century, cars looked more like carriages than automobiles. This was because people imagined them as an extension of horse-drawn transport. New ideas, concepts, and words were introduced, but old ways of thinking continued to be used to analyze and solve problems.”

Source: Leading Exponential Change: Go Beyond Agile and Scrum to Run Even Better Business Transformations

II.

Betsy Myers on leadership is self-knowledge:

“Leadership is self-knowledge. Successful leaders are those who are conscious about their behavior and he impact it has on the people around them. They are willing to examine what behaviors of their own may be getting in the way. Successful leaders understand that it we don’t lead consciously, it’s easy to repeat patterns that could be keeping us from achieving the results we are hoping for. The toughest person you will ever lead is yourself. We can’t effectively lead others unless we can lead ourselves.”

Source: Take the Lead: Motivate, Inspire, and Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Everyone Around You

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 5, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Robert E. Quinn on the connection between changing a system and understanding it:

“Kurt Lewin argued that we cannot really begin to understand a system until we try to change it. He understood that individual as well as collective scripts would stay hidden until the normal way that the organization operates is challenged. As soon as a change agent introduces a variation to that system, he or she will quickly learn about the scripts that are holding that system together. Once the scripts are brought to the light they tell us a lot about how that system handles variations.”

Source: Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results

II.

Change consultant David Jones on the challenges to expect when initiating change:

“Once you get past the novelty of a change, you’ll find that every system in your organization is set up to reject it. You’ve got to have the resolve, the courage, and the fortitude to see change through that part of the process, because it’s the most difficult part of the transition. You’ll only accomplish that if you’re able to successfully communicate why you’re changing, how it will be measured, why it is critical, and why people need to get on board and make it successful. It’s easy to get out of touch with the emotions of the people most affected by change.”

Source: Decade of Change: Managing in Times of Uncertainty

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:21 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 27, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shares his love of learning:

“The one thing that I would say that defines me is I love to learn. I get excited about new things. I buy more books than I read or finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can actually finish. But the thing about being able to watch people do great things, learn new concepts, is something that truly excites me.”

Source: Steve Clayton, Microsoft’s chief storyteller, interviews CEO Satya Nadella. YouTube (4:44)

II.

Jon Gordon on leading with optimism, positivity, and belief:

“Ultimately, being a positive leader is all about leading with faith in a world filled with cynicism, negativity, and fear. We all face this battle between faith and fear. A leader’s job is to fill your people with faith. How we respond to our world depends on the stories we tell ourselves. When you face adversity you can tell a positive story and then work to create a positive outcome. It’s always your state of mind and your thinking that produces how you feel and respond. When you see that the world has no power over you, you will lead more powerfully in the world.”

Source: The Power of Positive Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:43 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 20, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Porter Moser, head coach of the Loyola University Chicago men’s basketball team, on how to find success:

“How you think is how you feel, how you feel is how you act, and how you act is what defines you. I believe completely in the progression of these three statements. If you’re thinking good thoughts, you’re going to have a bounce in your step. You’re going to act in a certain way. Likewise, if you’re thinking negative thoughts, if you have a ‘poor me’ attitude, that’s how people will perceive you.”

Source: All In: Driven by Passion, Energy, and Purpose

II.

Jeffrey Hull on being a beta leader:

“Beta is a shift in mind-set from a goal-oriented, top-down figuration to a growth-oriented, process-based one. When we live in beta, we are in flux, always improving, and always aware of the need to disrupt the status quo. Beta means being comfortable in a state of constant growth, not aspiring so much to ascend the hierarchy and dominate from above, but to lead from anywhere, anytime.”

Source: Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 13, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Rachel Botsman discussing trust issues that revolve not just around trust and technology, but trust issues around size:

“I think so much of what we need in our lives are smaller systems, where you can really serve people’s best interests. I am a huge supporter of local news, I’m a huge supporter of community practices, all these things are very important touchpoints where people can say “that thing is really there for me” versus “this massive system in the world that I have no control of” which I think is really tied to the huge rise in anxiety that we’re seeing in the world today.”

Source: 6 Things 2020 Holds for Us According to An Expert

II.

Economist and professor John Kenneth Galbraith on how seemingly hopeless situations invite scoundrels who promise by magic to put everything right:

“Men who are desperate for a solution are easy to persuade because they wish desperately to be persuaded.”

Source: The Age of Uncertainty

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:10 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 6, 2020

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Samuel R. Chand, a leadership author and consultant, on disruption:

“A fighter pilot knows he's in the right spot when he's getting anti-aircraft fire. If you're not catching flack for your disruptive idea, you're not over your target yet. Keep flying.”

Source: New Thinking, New Future

II.

Michelle King in stressing that gender equality is not about fixing women, but fixing workplaces, says:

“Gender equality is not about raising women up at the expense of men. It is not about making men feel bad or listing all the ways than men need to change. Quite the contrary. It is about creating a workplace that values men and women equally and gives everyone the freedom to be themselves.”

Source: The Fix: Overcome the Invisible Barriers That Are Holding Women Back at Work

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:19 AM
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