There’s something so powerful about seeing your kids winning. I’m not talking about sports or school, I’m talking overall. When you watch them win, it’s better than winning yourself. When they are fully engaged, expressing themselves most powerfully, connecting, poised and successful it’s magic. It’s a kind of validation that’s hard to describe, seemingly making your own life and legacy…
There are two paths leaders can take. One is a mile wide and an inch deep or an inch wide and a mile deep. Doing a little bit of a lot of things can be exciting, offering a variety of opportunities, like sampling from the buffet table of what could be possible. This approach can be instrumental in learning what…
What do you need to know when adding to your team? It can be summed up with a few questions that may get to the core; the rest is art and science combined. Three questions to consider which can simplify how you think about adding to your team: This is a core value question, listening for alignment with your company’s…
When you are working on a team, it can bring the best and the worst of each other to the table. When mired in how things look, we get rigid, stuck and default to process instead of thinking. When things are working, it’s easy to hide the lack of thinking because the results mask automaticity and allow us to defer…
Relationships matter. At the heart of it, there is nothing else. When you run your business as if the busyness is the business, you lose. Relationships are the intangible and visceral heart of all that matters. When you lose sight of this reality focusing on the tasks and things to do, you’ll also lose something bigger. You’ll lose trust. It…
Structure frees creativity and structure creates freedom. I’d like to say I’m smarter than my dog, but some days I wonder. When we moved five years ago, our bulldog, Spanky, was lost. He struggled for a few weeks with the new location, routine, and loss of what he formerly relied upon to navigate his days and the familiar environment. He…
Who gives you energy? What activities give you energy? Here’s a simple exercise to try: Write a list and don’t answer with the “right” answers. Tell the truth. Who and what fill you up? When you stop to think, is your list long? Does it flow easily and is it hard to limit all the names and activities? If so,…
Follow through is tiring for me. What pushes me to finish is maintaining our reputation and keeping my word. It’s easier for me to keep my own promises than to work with others to ensure we’re communicating well enough to deliver what we agree to collectively. Working in teams requires us to coordinate actions, agreements and focus on clarity in…
One of our core values is “doing work you love with people you love.” This is meaningful to our incredible team to measure behavioral accountability, AND we use it in assessing our clients as well. It causes us to reflect on our attention to their needs, special things that make their experience as good as it can be (as we…
Family business isn’t for everyone. For those of us who appreciate it, one of the benefits of doing work you love is doing it with people you love. Whether by chance, by choice, or by circumstance, I hope you truly enjoy those you work with to the point of loving them. For us, one of the blessings we count is…