Leadership

One of the easiest ways to increase your value to an organization is to reduce the friction required to get you to do your job.

When your primary goal is to be liked, you can’t take risks. You can’t disagree. You can’t push boundaries. You become a prisoner of other people’s expectations.

“The best new ideas always have unanticipated benefits. So it’s stupid to require people who want to do new things to enumerate the benefits beforehand. The best you can do is choose smart people and then trust their intuitions about what’s worth exploring.”

One CEO we interviewed said it beautifully: “In my daily top team meetings, I ask, ‘Who is having challenges? Who are the people I should personally reach out to at any level in the organization?’” There is a call to action to have a finger on the pulse of the organization. How do employees feel? Where do connections need to happen? It requires a... See more

Sunflowers always face the sun, right? Similarly, individuals are always trying to guess the CEO’s or the most senior person’s point of view. Accordingly, you have to take active steps to overcome people’s reluctance to stick their necks out if the CEO has a particular perspective on a decision. You need to reward executives for bringing up... See more

It’s a truism that you always want to hire folks with very high standards, but I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce.