The Curiosity Trap: As mentioned several times on this blog, curiosity is a common trait of successful leaders. Many leadership coaches consider curiosity to be a requisite leadership strength. Also, on the blog, I have mentioned that one’s strength is also a weakness. How do these two precepts jibe? When is curiosity a weakness? Disruption The employees of highly curious …
Experience: There is a saying about sailing that goes something like this: “Sailing consists of hours and hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of sheer terror.” In my experience, that is pretty much true. Moreover, while I am familiar with sailboats, my brother is an expert on all things marine. When I asked him about his experience, he agreed that …
Common Enemies: As leaders, we are charged with the vision for our organization. That usually means predicting where we need to be in the future. People with different world views will unite when they have a common enemy. I believe we have major “enemies” that have the potential to unite people across the globe: Climate Change — Part I, Technological …
Sustainable Advantage: I don’t know how we can claim we have a sustainable competitive advantage unless, that is, that we believe that advantage to be our ability to learn faster than the competition. Technology is moving much too fast for us to think that some sort of product or service is really our competitive advantage. But continuous learning, a willingness …
Massive VUCA Ahead: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA). Lots and lots of moving parts in our economy. That we are living in an ambiguous environment is definitely an understatement. I am reminded of a recent car trip where a colleague was driving. We were going to an unfamiliar destination, so of course we were using our GPS to navigate. …
Pushed Out of the Comfort Zone: Lately, I’ve observed a lot of folks being dragged out of their comfort zones. Some are finding a huge change in our political environment to be unsettling. And some are perplexed over the many issues around perceived changes in our social values. A great deal of discomfort is due to the disruption coming (and …