Progress, change, transformation and innovation are all plagued by one organizational culture virus that inhibits growth and success—Learned Helplessness. When leaders and team members alike shut down all new ideas with responses like “It will never work,” “that will never get approved,” or “I wouldn’t even bother…” it’s clear that they’ve given up the hope that anything will change. Learned Helplessness is a phenomenon that was originally studied in a lab. Psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier used the term to describe the behavior of dogs who, after experiencing inescapable electric shocks behaved as if they were helpless. They stopped … Read More
Do You Stay Calm Under Fire?
Last month we wrote about 50 ways you can betray your message. This week, we’ll take a deep dive into what happens then everything goes wrong. No matter how hard we prepare for an event, no matter how many contingency plans we put in place, and no matter how many times you’ve been through the same routine, eventually things will go awry. Wifi goes down. Computers crash. Videos don’t load. Speakers’ flights are cancelled. The event organizer quits. The customer is a no-show. Shipments don’t arrive on time. Hotels and flights are overbooked. Print collateral has an error. You might … Read More
Creating a Culture of Lifelong Learning
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” – Albert Einstein What do Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet have in common? Other than being wildly successful billionaires, they devote several hours a day to reading. These moguls are at the top of their fields. They could retire today and never need another dime to live on, yet they choose to continue learning and work hard to build their own skills. There is no such thing as “enough” wisdom. In life, work, and personal relationships, professional development, etc., there is always room for improvement. When we wake up, … Read More
Leaders Must Provide Honest Answers: Beware of Open Wounds
We all carry around a certain degree of baggage with us daily. Relationships that went awry, painful life events, and regrets haunt us on the inside, in spite of the smile we show to coworkers and colleagues. The most innocent event can trigger all the old emotions we’ve stuffed deep down and hoped to forget. Recently, I spoke with a friend who experienced a full anxiety attack at the mere mention of a team meeting to discuss roles/responsibilities. In spite of the leader being very clear that the goal of the meeting was to reduce the extraneous activities that had … Read More
Successful Leaders Return Their Carts
I was scrolling through LinkedIn recently and came across this image. The image stuck with me—it says so much about what it takes to be a successful leader. Successful people go the extra yard. They finish the job. And they don’t cut corners. Leaving the cart in the parking lot is lazy, rude, and disrespectful. A person who leaves the cart in the middle of the parking lot doesn’t care about the impact on others. They put themselves first and ignore the consequences. They make decisions based on their current situation without regard for the future. These are not the … Read More
Information Overload: A Challenge for Leaders
With the family loaded in the car, you’re headed to your child’s friend’s house. While you’ve never been to this house before, you know the general area and have the address on hand. As you get closer to the destination, what do you do? Do you continue chatting away with the family about your plans or do you turn down the radio and ask everyone in the car to be quiet? Like most people, you probably asked for silence as you crawled through the neighborhood looking for your destination. But why? The sound of the radio may not visually impair … Read More