In chapter 4 of his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less, Greg McKeown discusses the critical issue of continuous ‘trade-offs’ in our personal, professional and organizational lives. To make his point McKeown summarizes the hugely successful story of Southwest Airlines and how its leadership, led by Herb Kelleher for many years, has produced amazing financial results, …
Life is all about choices. The same is true regarding leadership. Leadership is all about choices. The short-term, long-term, and ultimate fate of every leader—that includes you—is determined by his or her choices. Highly successful leaders make wise, proactive choices. We are in a study of the excellent book titled Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less, written by Greg …
In chapter three of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, author Greg McKeown poses an important and interesting question: “We have been taught from a young age that hard work is key to producing results, and many of us have been amply rewarded for our productivity and our ability to muscle through every task or challenge …
Have you every wondered about certain individuals or organizations who have achieved huge success, only to lose it and fade into obscurity within a number of years? What happened to them? Was it bad luck or unfortunate timing? Was their initial success a fluke? Did they suddenly just lose their edge? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer …
In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown writes: “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order …
In our day of massive information overload—24/7 everything, everywhere, all the time—it becomes increasingly difficult for leaders and all team members to focus on the truly vital and what is most important. In chapter one of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, author Greg McKeown tells the story of an executive facing this very situation. But …
Continuing our study of Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, this week we look at a crucial and liberating leadership question. How many leaders and organizations teach, coach, and explicitly empower ALL of their team members to ask and act on the following question? “Is this the most important thing I should be doing with …
We see it among less successful leaders in every industry and in every walk of life. Millions of leaders, and literally billions of people spend their entire lives, and their entire career ‘majoring in minor activities.’ I have been a formal and informal leader in the healthcare industry, and in business in general, for over forty years. As a hospital …
In his book The Little Book Of Talent: 52 Tips For Improving Your Skills, Daniel Coyle discusses ‘hard, high-precision skills’ versus ‘soft, high-flexibility skills.’ According to Coyle, hard, high-precision skills “have one path to an ideal result; skills that you could imagine being performed by a reliable robot.” Soft, high-flexibility skills “have many paths to a good …
Tip number six in Daniel Coyle’s book, The Little Book of Talent, is “Choose Spartan Over Luxurious.” Coyle correctly explains that we love comfort—state-of-the-art practice facilities, oak-paneled corner offices, expensive fluffy towels, and all kinds of other luxurious creature comforts and statements of status. Coyle asserts that “luxury is a motivational narcotic: It signals our unconscious minds to give …
As a leader, your job, your responsibility, your priority is not to manage nor accept the status quo. Your job, your responsibility, your priority is to personally exemplify continuous improvement and to create and maintain a culture that encourages and supports continuous improvement. That means a culture that encourages, accepts, supports and learns from mistakes. In the chapter …
Do you have a high-definition mental blueprint of what you consider to be ultimate success for your life? Personal success? Professional success? Even organizational success? In his book titled The Little Book of Talent, Daniel Coyle presents 52 tips for improving the skills you select that will lead to your vision and your definition of …
In the book titled Difference: The One-Page Method for Reimagining Your Business and Reinventing Your Marketing, author Bernadette Jiwa focuses on thinking differently and being a ‘difference thinker’ in order to create totally new programs, products and services. Much of what she writes is also directly applicable to leadership excellence. Consider these statements, found in the …
In the midst of significant change throughout America’s healthcare system, I can think of no better time to read and study the recently published book by Bernadette Jiwa titled Difference: The One-Page Method for Reimagining Your Business and Reinventing Your Marketing. Seth Godin, the world-class marketing guru, author, speaker, and blogger wrote the following about this …
As a leader, you’re expected to have the answers. Whether the questions are coming from customers, clients, competitors, employees, or the media, it’s important to be equipped with the right answer at the right time. But there is something even more important for leaders than having the right answers. Michael Hyatt recently addressed this topic …
In chapter 12 of his recent book titled, Sometimes You Win – Sometimes You Learn, John Maxwell writes the following: “To me, a mature person [and leader] is someone who has learned from losses, has gained wisdom, and possesses a strong emotional and mental stability in the face of life’s difficulties.” If you read this column regularly, …
It is the year 1963. A twelve-year-old boy sits in a pew at the back of an all-black church in Birmingham, Alabama, scribbling out math problems to pass the time as the service stretches on. Suddenly something the guest speaker says catches his attention: “If we can get the children to participate in this peaceful …
As leaders, we are constantly coaching, teaching, and influencing those whom we are privileged to lead. Leadership is very serious business! Your leadership will have a long-lasting positive or negative impact on each person and each organization you lead. We really don’t have a choice. If you are a leader—and everyone is a leader—you are …
“Most of the time we don’t choose our adversity, but all of the time we can choose our response to it.” John Maxwell wrote this powerful statement of truth in his latest book, Sometimes You Win – Sometimes You Learn. How true it is that “most of the time we don’t choose our adversity, but …