Scraped Knees and Bus Crashes

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Scraped Knees and Bus Crashes

Don't prevent scraped knees; prevent bus crashes. A scraped knee hurts. You might carry the scar for years. That's the point. The pain is proportional to the lesson. A bus crash can lead to catastrophic loss. The project. The company. The relationship. Something that can't be recovered. The leader's job isn't to eliminate mistakes. It's to know the difference between those two things.

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When Leaders Say “Accountability Problem,” They’re Usually Wrong

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When Leaders Say “Accountability Problem,” They’re Usually Wrong

When a leader tells me their team has an accountability problem, I don’t start with the team. I start with asking the leader questions. In fifteen years of coaching founders and executives, I’ve found that accountability is almost never the root problem. It’s a symptom. And until you find what’s underneath it, you can replace people, run workshops, post core values on the wall, and the same problem will keep showing up with different faces.

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Get Out of the Weeds: How to Balance the Day-to-Day with Overarching Strategy

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Get Out of the Weeds: How to Balance the Day-to-Day with Overarching Strategy

One of the most frequent struggles I see with entrepreneurs and business owners is this tension between managing the day-to-day operations of the organization and focusing on overarching strategy. Many business owners who seek coaching or peer advisory boards know they’re not spending enough time on strategy, and they can’t figure out how to shift the balance. 

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