Being Heard: For many of us, the employees we hire are often referred to as “knowledge workers.” The most common definition of that term I’ve come across is, “Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge.” In other words, we hire knowledge workers and pay them to think. We hope that they are smarter than we are in whatever …
First Manage: To be a good leader, you must first become a good manager. To do that, you must earn and accrue respect from the folks you manage. After all, the people give you permission to be a leader, not your position on the organization chart. Education Leadership is a learned skill. It seems to me that we forget that …
Trust I think it was Ronald Reagan who popularized this Russian saying, Trust But Verify. For me, in the leadership arena, this has a special meaning. Let’s start with trust. My definition of trust is: Trust means I believe that you authentically have my best interest at heart, not just your own.David Kinnear, BSEE, MBA, BCC, CVDC We can expand …
Here’s the story. I was fixing our breakfast when my wife asked why I wasn’t using the microwave egg poaching device she had recently purchased as a gift for me. Well, frankly, I had forgotten about it and had strong reservations about its efficacy. So I wasn’t all that interested in trying it out. Maybe I was hoping she’d forgotten about …
The Six Ts The issue of trust in organizations came up several times during the last two months (of the previous year). I am working with a couple of new executives. And so we had not been through the conversation at that point. And I was reminded of this again when I saw a list of the “Six T’s” by …
Some time ago I ventured out on a limb and suggested that the old sales and marketing model was obsolete for any non-trivial products. Ads, I opined, are being ignored for the most part – with a few notable exceptions such as the crazy Super Bowl patrons. I’ve been told that some folks tune in to the Super Bowl ONLY …
President Ronald Reagan famously said, “Trust but verify.” He apparently liked this old Russian proverb (doveryai no proveryai) and used it frequently. I too like that proverb and believe we, as leaders, should act upon it in many situations including when inclined to follow our “gut feelings” or intuition. I find it helpful to have a healthy level of skepticism even when …
I use the term “systems thinking” frequently and I’m quite sure it isn’t always clear what I actually mean when I use that phrase. There are various levels of “systems thinking.” On a very large scale, we are learning more and more about how interdependent life is here on earth. No change, regardless of how small, fails to affect the …
Recently I began a speech admitting that “I am a logomaniac.” Besides being taken to task for not providing a dictionary definition of the word, many folks in the audience admitted to having a bit of that mania themselves. Some, of course, more than others. Interestingly enough, several folks went a long time thinking that I was admitting to being …
It seems to be true that “we” have grown disgusted beyond words with the greed and duplicity of the political and business elite. This post discusses one particular aspect of what may have gotten us where we are.