Goal: a pair of posts linked by a crossbar; the object of a person’s ambition. Recently the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl for a sixth time, an incredible feat for any sport! The path to that championship began the day after the last season concluded, as the players decided how they would dedicate [...]

From the steady stream of paperwork, constant interruptions and the onslaught of emails, finding the time to keep an organized workspace can be very challenging. Even more than that, if there isn’t a simple and efficient system to manage papers, emails and other productivity tasks, work performance can suffer and businesses can be negatively impacted. [...]

It’s the holiday season again and there are many things happening anew that are a-old. Thinking about your year-end chaos and how listening creates impact is something I wrote about a few years back. As we look around us now, so much has changed in our world. And, although time is still ticking at the same pace, [...]

Are you someone who sets goals? Written goals? According to this Forbes article, those with written goals are more likely to accomplish them. Yet many of us don’t have goals at all. How do you start? Most of us have heard of SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-measurable) as the recommended way to construct goals. I [...]

I was engaged in conversation with a new manager who was frustrated with his team. "I don't get it. I give them all the room in the world to innovate their roles, to complete their assignments. Yet they come back to me with everything. I know the last manager wanted to see everything before it [...]

Our team focuses on our objectives, our processes, and our outcomes. We gather in meetings to check in on each other’s assignments in an around-the-room reporting style. Everyone hears what everyone else is doing. Sound like your team? Sounds more like a bunch of people gathered to report on projects, not a team. So, the [...]

Ten thousand people turn 65 today.  And again tomorrow. And again every day for the next decade. Maybe you are one of them? Maybe you are watching all that institutional knowledge leave your organization with each new retirement. Either way we know there is a gap happening between those retiring and those that remain. We [...]

My father often used this phrase in our house as he confronted hurtful comments we directed at each other. Recently I was doing some 360 interviews for a coaching client and found the conversation back in this same phrase. The leader was referring to her office whiteboard and this acronym she has posted to help [...]

Accountability has become an overused buzzword.  I hear it as a mechanism to measure performance - are we accountable to our goal? I hear it as a feedback tool - I expected you to achieve/solve/develop that. I'd like you to consider how accountability bifurcates - it's about results and behavior. While we are comfortable measuring the result, are we equally [...]

I’m not sure if it happens to anyone else, but it sure does happen to me. The Olympics have left a sense of hope and excitement in my soul…again. I remember when they shifted the games to every two years, essentially toggling between summer and winter in a way that provides a more consistent appearance [...]