I have yet to come across anyone who argues that trust is a bad thing. There are certainly times where we don’t trust people, and we wouldn’t just blindly trust them because we think trust is generically a good thing,…

I’ve always told myself that I like theory. I did my Master’s degree in conflict resolution at George Mason University, and I remember talking to colleagues of mine in the conflict resolution field who weren’t so sure about the program…

   You’ll be on mute.
It’s a new year.

New committee.
New chair.
Keen on engagement.

Invites committee members to join monthly call.

Between leadership.
 Members will be muted.
Questions can be emailed AFTER the call.

The chair’s intentions are good.

Wants people educated.
In the loop.
Excited about what’s going on.

And message communicated is off.

We are the benevolent leaders.
We are transparent.
You don’t matter.

Would you give up an [...]

Bob Corlett pointed me to an article by Henry Mintzberg that challenges the distinction between Leadership and Management. He argues that the financial crisis we are experiencing is at least partly due to “leaders” who considered themselves above the nitty…

   You’re not my parent.
As kids we ask lots of questions – why do I have to…

Clean my room?
Be nice to my brother?
Eat my veggies?

Sometimes parents explain the why.

Other times they fall back on the time-honored, traditional answer.
“Because I said so.”
(It’s a parent’s privilege – or so I’ve been told.)

We zoom forward to adulthood.

Serve as [...]

In Gary Hamel’s book, he suggests three areas on which to focus when creating a more human organization, and one of them is “too much management, too little freedom.” As I said in my previous post, most people will agree…

I said last week that I would “push back” against some of the things I learned at ASAE & The Center’s CEO Symposium. There were times during the presentations where I felt the speakers made some generically accurate statements, yet…

I am trying to get through Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management because (a) it is totally awesome and (b) I have a long list of other books I want to read. So I’m going to start some of my…