Author Archive
Two Questions You Should Ask Yourself Every Morning – LinkedIn
I recently spoke at a conference in Silicon Valley and I was pleased to stay for the rest of the event afterwards. The final speaker, Connie Podesta, said something which struck my curiosity. She said, “I am going to share the two most important questions you will everanswer. If you answer no to either of them I will [...]
The #1 Career Mistake Capable People Make – LinkedIn
I recently reviewed a resume for a friend. She has terrific experience. And yet, as I looked through it there was a problem: she had done so many good things in so many different fields it was hard to know what was distinctive about her. As we talked it became clear the resume was a [...]
The One Decision That Makes 1,000 – Harvard Business Review
Let’s start with a game. Below are three mission statements from three Fortune 500 companies. Try to match each company with its mission statement: How did you do? The largely indistinguishable statements make the task almost impossible. Such statements may still be considered “best practice” in some quarters but in so many cases they do [...]
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less – Harvard Business Review
Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call “the clarity paradox,” which can be summed up in four predictable phases: Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities. Phase 3: When we [...]
Stephen R. Covey Taught Me Not to Be Like Him – Harvard Business Review
Stephen R. Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, died yesterday. In a testament to his impact, his passing was news on CNN, The Washington Post and in many other publications around the world. The comments on these obituaries include two very divergent types. On group says he was a “snake oil salesman” who “started [...]
If You Don’t Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will – Harvard Business Review
“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” So said Mahatma Gandhi, and we all know how his conviction played out on the world stage. But what is less well known is how this same discipline played out privately with his own [...]
Can We Reverse the Stanford Prison Experiment? – Harvard Business Review
When I met for lunch with Dr. Phil Zimbardo, the former president of the American Psychological Association, I knew him primarily as the mastermind behind The Stanford Prison Experiment. In the summer of 1971, Zimbardo took healthy Stanford students, gave them roles as either guards or inmates, and placed them in a makeshift prison in the basement [...]
The Unimportance of Practically Everything – Harvard Business Review
A friend of mine is the Executive Director for an organization with global reach. He is intelligent and driven, but constantly distracted. At any given time he will have Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and multiple IM conversations going. The majority of them are useful in some way. Yet, in the back of his mind, he knows there are [...]
The One Thing CEOs Need to Learn from Apple – Harvard Business Review
A few weeks before Steve Jobs passed away, I was at Apple having lunch with a leader there. We revisited the well-known story of Jobs returning to an almost-bankrupt Apple. Jobs could have tried to maximize profits by squeezing every cent out of each of the existing product lines. But instead, he led the charge [...]
World Economic Forum and Young Global Leaders
I am blown away. On March 6th 2012 the World Economic Forum announced that I would be named one of their Young Global Leaders. The YGLs selected by a committee chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and the 192 Young Global Leaders comprise respected international leaders from business, government and media. Past [...]