In his book on boundaries for leaders, Henry Cloud uses a wonderful analogy to help us understand why it is important to have difficult conversations. When we avoid a difficult converation, we are allowing a dead fish to stink up the room -- only no one wants to admit there is a problem: "I don't smell anything." In other words, no one wants to bring the dead fish out into the open. This might happen when ... No one wants to confront an abusive leader. A teammate's misbehavior is allowed to continue. A parent chooses to overlook statements and actions that indicate potential trouble. Excuses are offered instead of changes. Businesses, churches, families -- each can suffer from a dead fish in the room. No amount of room deodorant will fix the problem; the problem is not in the air, it's the fish. The room may smell nice for a…
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Google has changed everything. My coffee tastes different, the jet stream flows in a different direction. Everything has changed because information is at our fingertips. We can search for (and find) coffee shops that only serve organic, fair-trade coffee, gluten-free muffins, and soy milk for the lactose intolerant. Not only will Google help you find it, it will help you get there as well. But Google was not the first search engine. Before Google, I used search engines called Webcrawler, Lycos, or AltaVista. You just earned an extra star at Starbucks if you used one of those, too. The first search engines simply "crawled" the internet, indexing sites by keywords and titles. When you searched for a term, the search engine returned a list of matching sites. It was a basic form of search and the list may or may not have contained relevant sites. Google changed everything. Using algorithims,…
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When buttoning your coat, if you get the first button correct, the rest of the buttons all line up, too. The same is true in life ...
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How often have we heard how important it is to have our priorities straight? I'm guessing it's been more than once or twice. Why is that? The answer is simple: because we keep getting our priorities out-of-whack (that is a technical term meaning "messed up"). It's not because we want to have our priorities out-of-order. Our intentions are good. Over time, however, we get pulled or distracted or even disgruntled and our priorities begin to shift. A little here, a little there. As our priorities shift, so do other things in life -- home, family, happiness, and contentment. One or two degrees in the wrong direction can make a big difference over time. When couples come in for counseling, they often think the most important thing is their relationship. They ask, "What can we do to work on our relationship?" While their relationship is not unimportant, it's not the most…
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Jim Collins is one of my favorite authors on business and leadership. I've been reviewing my notes from a talk he gave at the 2012 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. He was sharing principles based on his book, "Great by Choice." This line from my notes jumped out at me: "The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change but is chronic inconsistency." For the most part, few of us wake up and decide to be mediocre. It's not a typical life aspiration -- or shouldn't be! But when we allow chronic inconsistency to creep into our lives, our routines, our families, our work environment -- we are allowing ourselves to become mediocre. Everyone may miss a deadline here or there. We all make mistakes and occasionally exercise poor judgment. Welcome to the human race. Mediocre people, however, are chronically inconsistent. They are known by spurts and bursts. What…
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