Leadership

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.

“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

Managers of managers, therefore, should ask management and leadership questions. For example, "What should you do to your organization to assure that due dates are met?" or "How well do your people understand the quality standards and what are you doing to assure they meet then?" These questions elicit quite a different response and help the

... See more

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.

In many ways, there is only one question any manager need ask: How do I make my team members’ lives easier—physically, cognitively, and emotionally?

It turns out that reality has a surprising amount of detail, and those details can matter a lot to figuring out what the root problem or best solution is. So if I want to help, I can’t treat those details as a black box: I need to open it up and see the gears inside. Otherwise, anything I suggest will be wrong—or even if it’s right, I won’t have... See more