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Are These Systems Serving or Subverting Organization Results?

As I wrote about the accountability mess, a good person in a bad system or process sets that them up for failure — and blame. “The 85/15 Rule” emerged from decades of root cause analysis of service/quality breakdowns. About 85% of the time the fault is caused by the system, processes, structure, or practices of […]

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What Accounts for the Accountability Mess?

  Accountability is highly subjective. Its meaning depends on whether we’re at the giving or receiving end. Many of us have been lashed with the accountability whip wielded by a blundering manager playing “gotcha games.” Often, accountability is a search for who to punish. The Blame Game and finger-pointing turns problem-solving and performance issues into […]

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Leading Question: Are You a Barrier Buster?

  I was interviewing a leadership team member to prepare for an offsite planning retreat. I asked about the biggest challenges facing their team. She wearily said it was their unfocused frantic pace of activity.  “We have lots of projects, goals, and priorities. We’re constantly making lists and setting action plans. But we seldom see […]

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Don’t Be an Ass in a Lyin’ Skin

  An Ass found a Lion’s skin left in the forest by a hunter. He dressed himself in it, and amused himself by hiding in a thicket and rushing out suddenly at the animals who passed that way. All took to their heels the moment they saw him.  The Ass was so pleased to see […]

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Love Radiates From the Depths of Our Spirit and Meaning

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to reflect on the power of love and purpose. As mentioned in my top ten life lessons, I’ve written book chapters and about 200 blogs and articles about love. One of those, posted exactly 12 years ago on Valentine’s Day, was Love is at the Heart of Strong Leadership. Highly […]

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Working in our Dash: What’s the Meaning of It?

  “The Dash” is a poem written by Linda Ellis. In 1996, an announcer read her poem aloud on a syndicated radio show. This sparked a tsunami of response to Linda on how the poem touched their lives. The continuous outpouring of gratitude and stories inspired by the poem led Linda to eventually publish her […]

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Spirit and Meaning: At The Heart of Life and Leadership

Exercises such as my last post reflecting on key life lessons indicate our values and what’s most meaningful to us. It’s a timeless personal and leadership principle I call “spirit and meaning.” Spirit and meaning is a missing link in many lives, teams, and organizations. Many with material prosperity live in spiritual poverty. That’s what’s […]

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What Are the Most Important Lessons You’ve Learned in Life?

  There’s a quick and easy question! How would you answer it? Life lessons are one of 52 questions I’ve been asked weekly since my last birthday almost a year ago. That’s when our daughter, Jen, gifted me a subscription to Storyworth. The service is designed for older family members to answer a weekly question […]

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Earth Tones: We Need a Climate Change of Hope and Optimism

  “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at an international climate negotiations conference.   “A recent global survey asked 100,000 16- to 20-year-olds about their attitudes to climate change. More than three-quarters thought the future was frightening, and more than […]

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Protective Perspective: Don’t Be a Victim of the Doomsters Divers

How’s the world doing? Are we heading in the right direction? Should we look to this new year with dread or hope? How do you answer these questions: Is morality in decline? Are people less kind, less honest, and less good? Do we need to make America/Canada/The World great again? Are rates of violent/property crimes […]

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Renewal Claus: A Year-End Pause for Your Cause

  Santa can now relax after his big night. Hope the kids in your life aced their big performance review and rated highly on his naughty-nice scale. The Holidays are a good time for the pause that refreshes — even without drinking a little glass bottle of Coca-Cola as Santa did in those old commercials […]

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Enduring Life and Leadership Lessons from Ebenezer Scrooge

One of my holiday traditions is watching various movie versions of Charles Dickens’ much-loved classic, A Christmas Carol. Last weekend when two of our grandkids had a sleepover, we watched my favorite version, The Muppet Christmas Carol. To ensure a more restful sleep for all, we skipped over a few of the scarier, ghostly parts. When Les […]

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For the L of It: Living and Leading Above the Line

Too many appointed leaders sit on the line and wait rather than taking the initiative and stepping up to make things happen. They follow someone else’s lead. Some slip down below the line and wallow in hopelessness and pessimism — which they’ll often call “being realistic.” They may be called “leaders” by their position. But […]

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Smarten Up: Hone Your EQ Edge

There’s not a lot we can do about the processing power between our ears. For the most part, we’re stuck with whatever IQ we’ve got. The good news for many of us is that our IQ is less important to success and happiness than our EQ (Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence). What’s even better is […]

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Fear Factor: Hiding Mistakes, Anger/Resentment, and Not Communicating

Last of a Six-Part Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words (Links to previous parts below)   Most of the Wallow Words in this series have a common cause. Fear. In the depths of the Great Depression, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt famously declared in his first inaugural address in 1933, “The only thing we […]

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More, More, More: I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

  Part Five of a Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words (Click to read Parts One, Two, Three, or Four)   How much land does a man need? Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story with this title about Pahom, a peasant farmer who was given a chance for free land. Carrying a […]

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What Moose? I Know Nothing, I See Nothing, I Say Nothing

  Part Four of a Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words (Click to read Parts One, Two or Three) Following is a condensed scene from Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work. The book’s central character, Pete Leonard, is a middle manager in a tech services firm. He reports to […]

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Overloaded, Overwhelmed, and Too Busy to Learn

  Part Three of a Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words (Click to read Parts One and Two)   Does this sound familiar… “Nowadays, people don’t ask you how you are, they say, ‘Are you busy?’ meaning, ‘Are you well?’ If someone actually does ask you how you are, the most cheerful answer, of […]

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Whine and Freeze: I Don’t Have the Authority

Part Two of a Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words (Click to read Part One) A central theme of my fictional story of Pete Leonard in Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work was how he gave his power away by acting as if he was powerless. He and his […]

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I am Not a Born Leader

Part One of a Series on The Tempting Ten Wallow Words Carl Sandburg, the American historian, poet, and novelist who won two Pulitzer Prizes, once said, “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” With today’s urgent streams of […]

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