What sounds better, a performance-driven culture or growth-driven culture? They both sound good, but there are important differences. A performance-driven culture fosters a zero-sum game mentality where there are winners and losers. In unforgiving environments of performance-at-all-costs, the tendency is to minimize mistakes, cover up, and deny weaknesses. It becomes too risky to reveal any …
Author: John Stevenson
Adaptability
http://handypetes.com/?page_id=13 As Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in 1395: “Time and tide wait for no one.” No matter how much we might want time to slow down or stop time because of comfort, pleasure or familiarity, it continues. Circumstances change. People change. Forces beyond our control – change. Which leaves us no choice but to adapt, as …
Potential
World-renowned author and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar (1926 – 2012) was born in southeastern Alabama, the tenth of twelve children. Over the course of his 60-year career he helped millions work hard and be positive, and he went on to become one of the foremost figures in the art and science of human potential. Below …
Essentially
Ever feel like you’re being pulled in too many directions? Like you’re trying to do it all? Like you can’t get a moment of peace? It’s unsettling, unhealthy and unsustainable. It keeps you from achieving everything you want. Greg McKeown, in his book “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” lays out a solid set of tactics for …
Meaningfulness
Chasing happiness can make you downright unhappy. Why? Because happiness is the quick-rush, simple carbohydrate of emotions. More money makes us happy. More cars make us happy. More attention makes us happy. And so, we feel full for a while, but the feeling often disappears very quickly. And then, we feel empty. And lonely. And …
Self-awareness
Lack of self-awareness is a problem. It can lead to anxiety, broken relationships, lower happiness, and reduced performance. On the flip-side, high self-awareness happens to be the secret ingredient for leadership greatness. Organizational psychologist and author Tasha Eurich has researched and written extensively on the subject: “People who are high in internal self-awareness tend to …
Advice
Healthy collaboration is a necessity for almost any endeavor. We need peers, partners – and bosses – to do our best work and accomplish big things. And let’s face it, our bosses (or clients) are the most important ones to enlist – and please. They are the ones that evaluate performance and decide things like …
Actions
Email is still the personal and professional dashboard of our lives for the most important things. This is why I like this simple productivity method so much and have adopted it in my own daily routine. Email can feel like a tsunami sometimes, but this one email will really stand out because it’s the one …
Think
We’ve become a society of snap judgments. We often guess at the right answer. We frequently rush important decisions. We sometimes speak or act before thinking. Too many business leaders jump to the first conclusion, without evaluating all the evidence. A lack of meta-cognition — thinking about thinking — also drives overconfidence. When Thomas J. …
Brilliant
Tara Mohr is all about playing big. As an expert on women’s leadership and well-being (read her bio) Mohr says that women are sometimes simply too comfortable with keeping a low profile and staying in the background. I’ve shared these before and it’s because they’re so spot on and inspiring. Here are Mohr’s “10 Rules …