I hinted at something in this article: that there were a large number of leaders who have not had the experience of leading through an economic downturn since they became senior leaders. Since penning that note, I have spoken with several leaders who are in this demographic who have had some really powerful on-the-ground observations. […]
Well, that was a good run. The Bull Market celebrated its 10th anniversary on March 9, 2019. It didn’t make it to year 11 – in fact, the market was already on its way down on March 9, 2020. There is hope. We will rebuild and improve our businesses and economy – leaning into the […]
With little warning, the current pandemic has thrust many of us into the world of virtual work with almost no time to adjust. The outcome is that we’ve taken the processes we used in our face-to-face lives and directly mapped them to our dens and bedrooms. I’ve been on the phone and in the messenger […]
Being a leader in times of crisis can feel completely chaotic and interruption driven. Meetings become nearly continuous and the constant streams of unstructured information are mentally exhausting to parse through. Even when you take some “downtime,” your mind is still whirring to integrate new information in the background. The most empowering thing you can […]
We are dealing with some stuff right now – a truly global pandemic – in the era of global interdependence. We’d like to believe that as humans we are super adaptable and ready for anything. But the truth is, history shows that our selective attention can take us the wrong way (for an example, […]
As this article is being written, we are heading into a major public health disruption around the COVID-19 virus. At this point, leaders around the globe are working out their responses, and it is very clear that there will not be a business on the planet that does not have clients that will feel the […]
“You’ve seen some stuff!” a client exclaimed as we were unpacking a challenging problem they were facing. This triggered a montage in my head of the dozens and dozens of ideas that I’ve had the privilege to work up over the years with great colleagues. Each of them passed muster with us finding evidence of […]
I was talking with a senior-level R&D executive recently, and this topic came up: How can two projects – both of which are important and highly likely to create great value for both the firm and the client – have two such different paths? We talked about how one leader can guide a project that […]
It happens in all phases of life: we step out to take on a project and we get off to a great initial start…then the very next thing that happens is that we have a setback. In our personal lives, it may be a garage project that looked so easy when YouTube phenom April Wilkerson […]
R&D Leaders: This rare skill will help you build a stronger team – but it needs your protection. I was early in my career and knew something didn’t feel quite right – but I was too fresh to know exactly what it was. It happened during my first posting with a global product group, where […]
