Leading With Music

wonder… Cleaning Up

Dec 31, 2021 | Cleaning Up, U2, wonder

You have today. While always true, particularly today is the day to Clean Up anything you need to put a “2021” on. For me, it is ordering supplies and other expenses that I can accelerate into the rearview mirror, and then downloading fiscal records (stop laughing – I do actually keep them – mostly). It is one of those business practices that I used as a game each year that I continued to play in this new path. The wonder is I still do that mentally – stuck thinking eventually someone will figure out that I need to get a “real job”…

Cleaning Up observation

Dec 30, 2021 | Cleaning Up, observe, U2

“So – he comes in here, throws papers in the air, plays some guitar, and then does it again?” Yes – yes, of course. My nephew was visiting, and his observation was spot on – my office’s normal state is a disaster. My Daughter on seeing my Cleaned Up version one time remarked more politely, “My, there are a LOT of things to observe!”. Up comes easy – Cleaning, not so much…

partners to Clean Up

Dec 29, 2021 | Cleaning Up, partner, U2

Music is the cornerstone of my work now. U2 was formed by people who were, like me, actually not great musicians. Larry played the drums “wrong” and The Edge was at best a rhythm guitar player when they started, to say nothing of Adam who only learned the Bass because they needed one. Even Bono wasn’t that sure of his own voice – both writing and singing. Can we learn something about partners and Cleaning Up – only from the music?

Cleaning Up management

Dec 28, 2021 | Cleaning Up, manage, U2

I didn’t even bring blank paper with me. Thinking about leaving behind the only reality I had known as a working manager for nearly 40 years, I knew I needed to get some clarity. Offsites were by now second nature, mostly done poorly, and frankly one of the things I found myself Cleaning Up for other teams. And here I was sitting in our recently purchased Mountain House, a little dizzy from the altitude, and more from what the heck was I thinking?

engage Cleaning Up

Dec 27, 2021 | Cleaning Up, engage, U2

Happy Boxing Day! Sorta Christmas Lite for the poor and the working-class across the British Empire, it is now a holiday that has turned into something much more American – a huge post-Christmas Sale 😉 So In both contexts, it is bringing home “boxes” of goodies that you may not have gotten last week. One year this week between Christmas and New Year’s, our hot water heater went out, requiring us to Clean Up the whole back basement area … and sparked another way to think about Boxing…

executing with Belief

Dec 25, 2021 | Belief, execute, The Staple Singers

Before your day gets off to a roaring start of execution, let me say Merry Christmas!! Filled with lots of traditions that come from Beliefs modeled around you, hopefully, yours are as fun as mine are. Our home had a completely separate living room that was divided from the house with a solid sliding door. Thus access was “limited” until we had gotten completely dressed, had a full breakfast, and then Dad would go in and prepare for our entry – with his light bar of Four Thousand watts…

executing Together

Dec 18, 2021 | execute, Ray Charles, Together

Through daily iterations of a spreadsheet of 1765 engineers around the globe, we were as ready as we could be to launch Project One on January 1. If someone ever suggests you do a massive corporate reorg at the first of the year, just say the sentence that I work with leaders on the most. A complete sentence that, as they say in Charades: 1 word, 2 letters. “No”. I would love to tell you we were confident this would be executed well, but honestly, we were really never sure what the real objective was in the first place, so we would hit something…

executing Couragously…

Dec 11, 2021 | Courage, execute, Journey

I landed the role I am writing about this week late in 2002 with some luck during the opposite of what we are seeing now. An economic downturn after 2001 had frozen hiring, depressed salaries, and I felt fortunate to get anything, even this now meat-grinder role. The Courage to think about doing something else was tied up in one of the hardest issues to confront – money. Do we have enough, will we have enough, particularly with kids just heading into College. And yet, I knew that this was going to slowly kill me if I stayed…

renewing Continuously for a Change…

Dec 5, 2021 | Continuous Change, Journey, renew

“If your employees need their weekends to rest and renew, you might have a burnout culture.” I saw that headline … and the only edit I would suggest is to remove the word “might”. There are articles almost every day about it, and many leaders I work with are moving between roles to get away from it, believing that is caused by their situation. Sadly, it travels with them, and the dirty secret is the person who is most responsible for burnout is… you. I know – because it was (and is) me…

executing Change Continuously…

Dec 4, 2021 | Continuous Change, execute, Journey

So what the heck is a Change Agent anyway? I didn’t see that career path in the College Catalog, but there are sure a lot of people out there with that title on their business cards. You’ve seen them, I am sure – in conference rooms, and in my generation, nice looking suits/pantsuits, expensive briefcases, and a stack of forms and “best practices” that they are bringing to your neighborhood to “help” you. And they always have an execution plan – timelines, milestones, and something called “deliverables” that they are going to “help” you develop. Yeah – like I actually have time to execute anything else… other than them 😉

Continuously wondering about Change?

Dec 3, 2021 | Continuous Change, Journey, wonder

If you study people, you quickly recognize that putting them together into groups and teams is… complex 😉 And if you wonder why I love studying musical groups, you can see how simply adding one new person completely changes things. In the research around Teams, the highest performing have been together for more than 2 years… but less than 5. Balancing Change and Continuous is something that is worth wondering about…

Continuously observing Change…

Dec 2, 2021 | Continuous Change, Journey, observe

God is in fact a comedian. If you don’t believe me, then why would he put me into a “natural” career path where my most Continuously uttered phrase is “Slow Down”? Never a core competency of mine, it is the stance that I try to help others with … as they whiz past something important that they have said, or missed an implication of not observing what they actually know – versus what they want to be true. They are interested in Change – sure – but often miss the signposts on their Journey that make change both possible, and positive…

Continuously Changing partners?

Dec 1, 2021 | Continuous Change, Journey, partner

Today I am hosting one of the final workshops for a group of brave souls who are piloting the Designing Your Life material that I prototyped on myself for the last year. They have all discovered the magic needed to sustain Change, particularly Continuously: partners. I would love to claim it is the material, and even my excellent leadership – but you all know me 😉 There is something about realizing that you are not alone…

managing Continuous Change…

Nov 30, 2021 | Continuous Change, Journey, manage

“Why do I have to Change… AGAIN?” It is one of my most often asked questions — usually as I wrote about yesterday, in a raised tone of voice. The less polite version is clearer — “THEY should Change!!!” Yes… and “They” are not in this conversation… you are. You asked for this. Or didn’t, but either way, here we are again, managing Change… and the impossible nature of that work. In a workshop early in my Coaching career, a man said he can cure migraine headaches.

Leadership topic - execute