Through a sea of glistening blue (jeans), you spot a current of croissants and crullers rippling through the break room. Confetti streams the walls in tribute to Ralph from HR’s birthday and hints of nutmeg and cinnamon perfume the room. The mailboxes, disguised as Christmas stockings, contain beckoning paychecks and invitations to a weekend cocktail party celebrating the impressive numbers released from finance earlier in the week. A rare laughter swells out of Ethan Marcus’s …

Yesterday, the media volleyed around stunning stories of tennis legend Venus Williams’ diagnosis of Sjögren’s Syndrome and her subsequent withdrawal from the U.S. Open. The story saturated mainstream news networks, receiving full court attention from health and lifestyle journalists in addition to devoted sports reporters. All this press served to racquet up both sympathy for Williams and intrigue into her “shocking diagnosis”, Sjögren’s Syndrome (Moisse & Childs, ABC News, 9/1/2011). In full disclosure, I also …

This post is the first in a series that dissects classic nursery rhymes in search of helpful leadership lessons for the proactive, politically savvy manager. Enjoy.
Blank space

Blank space

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a sight in your life,

As three blind mice?
Organizations are laboratories of two …

Humor me for a small exercise in meditational zen. As you find your center and begin deep, controlled breaths, your office surrounding dissolve away. You’re transported to a rocky Andorran precipice where a sharp breeze bites at your exposed neck. Surveying the rugged landscape, you glimpse a wild horse commuting between France and Spain across the liberated terrain. As you watch the horse lightly gallop across the horizon, you can almost feel the hypnotic rumbling …

I cringed when Rupert Murdoch was pied in the face in Britain’s Parliament at the peak of his News of the World scandal. As frosting projectiled toward the media tycoon’s face, jaws dropped in both offended horror and journalistic hunger for a rich news story. The gears of a media landscape Murdoch helped construct began turning against him as reporters baked the event into a delicious tabloid commentary on the mogul’s precipitous fall from grace.
I …

On a daily basis someone asks me “how do I motivate those I lead?” It’s an age-old question. Whether you have tens of thousands of direct reports or only two or three, in order to get things done, in order to be successful, you have to find a consistently productive way to motivate and sustain momentum.  
I have always taught that motivation is about people’s willingness to expend effort to achieve a goal. You must discover …