Managing yourself

Without a foundation of trust, your efforts will be in vain.

Boards prefer executives who are amicable, but that's not what drives results.

Imagine that you had 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes at the next executive staff meeting to get your message across. Would you be able to focus your...

Some people spend $$$ to experience the thrill of a scare.

Leaders of the past almost always seem more effective than those of today. It's a perceptual bias: We long for what we don't have, and mythologize what...

Have you ever seen a young child try to dress himself? For my three-year old grandson, the buttons are most difficult. He concentrates on each as though...

Be fair and don’t panic.

If you need help transforming your organization’s wildest dreams into reality, introduce a new managerial device that’s as simple as it is effective.

Samsung’s Lee Kun-hee was in power, then out of power, and is now in power again. And that’s not making life easy for his former employee Kim Yong-chul. As reported today, the latter is in a form of career exile after accusing his boss and other top executives of corruption. The complaint got results: Lee […]

Don't ignore emotions.

Companies routinely squander their most precious resource--the time of their top executives. In the typical company, senior executives meet to discuss...

Over the summer I had an early morning conference call with another consultant and one of his clients. As we were wrapping up, I asked the other two people...

We can’t always control what assignments we accept at work, but how we approach our work is up to us.

This post was co-authored with my colleague Holly Newman. Have you ever questioned the guidance of a GPS navigation system? The calm and definitive voice...

Think about yourself, your boss, and your company's culture.

It's not just about the money.

Create a "might-do" list instead.

My husband's story.

No matter what your company, you've probably encountered organizational politics. One of the most frequent complaints that I hear from managers is how...

For most of us, starting at a new company brings up those same anxieties we felt when starting in a new school as a child. All of a sudden you don't have...