In the fourth lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I detail five critical practices for effective communication. In that process, we emphasize just how important it is that we keep our message simple and we share it over and over and over again with absolute consistency. Cindy...

Before a potential wound festers, let’s make sure we clean it up properly. I occasionally ruffle feathers when I compare the actions our team members take to those of our children. I don’t mean that to be one bit belittling. If I’m being honest, I’m at least as capable of doing something immature (a...

While the foundation for the residential construction projects I was involved with in my teens was on a much smaller scale than the skyscrapers I alluded to earlier, they were no less important to the long term stability of the home. The same holds true for the core values in a business of any size....

As we wrapped up our look at who ultimately cares about our values, and how much our organization’s entire reputation rests on them, I emphasized the importance of modeling our values and explaining why - because we can’t just assume the general public will piece it all together on their own; they’r...

Just like the work required for laying a foundation to any building to stand the test of time, establishing routines that model the core values that will ultimately serve as the foundation our organization is built on can be incredibly difficult. Before moving on, I’ve gotta ask.. Is it just me or d...

During a conversation Cindy and I had with Carly Fiorina several years ago, she emphasized the importance of taking a “clear-eyed look at our existing state” if we wanted to have any hope of achieving our desired future state - personally, professionally, and with the entire team we’re leading. The ...

Throughout Leading With A Clear Purpose, I emphasized how important it is for everyone in a leadership role to understand exactly why they do what they do, to share a message with our teams detailing why our organization exists, and to help each team member understand their own purpose while connect...

Make no mistake, providing behavioral examples that define our core values doesn’t have to be through some elaborate presentation for the world to see, or even done with a nifty slideshow in small groups. It’s far more important that we exemplify the appropriate behaviors personally and that we reco...

Highlighting our own behavior to provide examples that define our values certainly helps us build those values into the conversations we have with our teams, but don’t mistake this as a suggestion to be boastful about how amazing we are; it’s anything but that! 

Not long after starting our business...

Before we walk through a few steps we can take to remove every bit of ambiguity we possibly can from the core values our organization operates on, let’s tackle an issue every leader faces at one point or another: even when we detail exactly what “doing good” looks like for each of our team members, ...

I started my first full time job just after turning fifteen years old and, as they say, the rest is history… But that history makes for a good story every now and then! In this case, the story won’t be all that funny but it’s certainly relevant why it’s so important for us to remove the ambiguity th...

Since that large tech firm’s “staggering $75 million loss attributed to misaligned goals and unclear expectations” that I’ve referenced twice now could be a bit more than you or I will experience in our own roles, let’s make it a bit more personal and consider what our numbers could be… First though...