communications

When your taste is ahead of your skill, you are not happy with the work you produce.

Stop a minute and think about it: all the times you are dissatisfied with your work, it just means that your taste for what is good is ahead of what you are able to create.

This conflict is good — in fact, it is what allows your skill to grow. You have a reference of... See more

When we want to impress, we often feel the urge to name every single thing we’ve done.

Every skill we have.

Every client we’ve ever worked with.

Anything we’ve attempted.

We think the more we add to the list, the greater our accomplishments will seem.

But more isn’t always better. Sometimes it’s actually worse. Why?

People judge us based on the average o... See more

If a high performer suddenly starts being upset about lots of little things, it’s usually one big thing.

In order of probability, it’s usually one of the following:

• they’re faced with a challenge they’re struggling with and don’t like doing a bad job


• personal life issues


• yhey have a new, bad manager


• they have an underperforming peer they depend on

... See more

Skepticism says, “I don’t think this will work. I need to understand more.” It’s an open challenge, a gesture of care cloaked in doubt. Cynicism says: “This won’t work, and it probably never could.” It’s a closed loop, often born from past disappointments calcified into a worldview.

If concrete consulting is for the problems organizations already know they have to solve, amorphous consulting is for the problems organizations can’t put words to yet.

Unlike the concrete consultant, the amorphous consultant doesn’t begin as a clear expert in what the client already knows it needs. Figuring those needs out is what those apparently aimless conversations are for. The sensemaking/patternfinding work being done there is exactly like what happens when I do ethnographic research in organizations: I’m l... See more