Albert Einstein reportedly said that insanity was to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.  As 2019 is quickly coming to a close, how did you like 2019’s results?  If 2019 was successful, will the same approach work in 2020 to achieve even better results?

Part way during facilitating a full day session with a client the meeting went from great to tense really fast.  Some of the team’s deep-seated dysfunctional ways of operating came to a head.  The vibe in the room tanked.  People didn’t want to be there.  Tensions and emotions ran high.  Though we finished the session, the team was visibly shaken by the end of the day – the wheels had come off the team.

In our personal and professional lives good is the enemy of great.  We let good things crowd out great things.  We settle for good, and forego great. Many of the entrepreneurial leadership teams I work with are initially in this category of settling for ‘good’ results as opposed to actually achieving ‘great’ results.  The vortex of their day-to-day activities has blinded them from being able to prioritize the most important activities that would take their business from good to great.  Yes, you have to get your day-to-day activities done – it’s your job – but to truly move the needle for the company, everyone has to become expert Rock crushers!

Southwest Airlines is by far the most successful commercial airline in US history.  But Southwest’s beginnings can be traced back to this simple napkin drawing…

While great leaders look outside their organizations to learn from the mistakes and best practices of others, there is a danger in endlessly searching for that elusive ‘magic bullet’ they feel is missing from their company.

During the early days of a business, any paying customer is an ideal customer. The reality of trying to make payroll, gain experience and develop a reputation drives many entrepreneurs to accept any paying work that comes their way.

One of the principles in Jim Collins’ classic book “Good To Great” is what he terms the “Hedgehog Concept”. This concept is based on a Greek parable which says “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” and Isaiah Berlin’s division of all people into hedgehogs or foxes based on the parable.

In their book "Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant" W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne’s divide the world of business competition up into two oceans - red and blue.

Leadership at its essence is about leading a team or company from “here”, the current state to “there”, a preferred future state. When leadership is viewed through the lens of leading others from ‘here’ to ‘there’ the similarities between great leaders and great navigators becomes more clear.

A weed free lawn or garden is not normal. Weeds will take root and grow unless someone takes intentional action to prevent them from growing. To extend the metaphor to the leadership of teams, leaders are the gardener and their team is the garden.

All leaders need to fight against the leadership flaw of “It’s not what you preach – it’s what you tolerate.”

The old saying “He who tells the best story wins” has proven true in all areas of life, across the world, and down through the centuries.

Business owners have a seemingly never ending number of battles they need to fight to the point it can make them blind to the biggest issue they need to resolve – that massive five ton elephant in the room!

We’ve all been there. Maybe it's a small issue that’s snowballed into a larger one or that nagging feeling we get when we know we need to address an issue with a colleague, boss or teammate. Navigating conflict is hard.

You’ve likely experienced being on a team with a leader that lacks self-awareness. They’re the type that have a difficult time recognizing how their emotions, words and behaviors affect other people. They tend to have difficulty engaging the hearts and minds of those around them. They also usually have a hard time empathizing with others, leading to an inability to “read” other people and often being “misread” by others.

A friend was recently recounting a story I’ll never forget: He was driving on the highway with his wife and three boys on their way home from Christmas break.