I’ve written before about dealing with the pervasive problem of being too busy (see https://enlumenls.com/say-no/, or the videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlqgjjR3m68). 
There is a way to gain significant ground against this problem. Now don’t roll your eyes at me until you’ve heard me out, but I believe the best, most lasting solution to being too busy is… Continue reading The Cure for “Too Busy”
I was sitting in a CEO’s office when he excused himself to take an important call. While he was on the phone, I read through the mission, vision, and values statements hanging on his wall. When he hung up, I asked, “How do these documents influence what happens out there in the office every day?”
All too predictably, he rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Not much.”
My advice to him was to do one of three things:
Continue reading Dangerous Mission Statements
It happens all the time. A client tells me about a difficult situation they’re dealing with and wants to know what to do. It’s a fair question and I’m happy to help. The sad part is that more often than not, the difficult situation could have been avoided altogether. The sadder part is that it will most likely happen again.
Continue reading Making Tomorrow Easier
From the CEO to the low man on the totem pole, every person we hire has some effect on our organizational culture. Obviously, the higher up the ladder, the greater the opportunity for impact. And one lower-tier 
person has a lot more impact in a ten person organization than in a 10,000 person organization.
We hire because we need a skill or capacity. So our focus tends to drift toward the hard skills the position requires. But according to most surveys, lacking the skills to do the job is not the top reason people leave their jobs – voluntarily or involuntarily. Character and soft skills are usually the culprits. Yet there isn’t one perfect model of character and soft skills that fits every organization.
Continue reading Hiring for Culture Fit
Landing a man on the moon or building a skyscraper are incredibly complex projects requiring advanced project management (PM) skills. Highly skilled project managers pull off seemingly miraculous feats of coordination and 
collaboration. You may not need that caliber of PM skills, but even small organizations still need to rally multiple resources to launch products, plan events, create marketing materials, build business plans, and solve other problems. Continue reading Minimalist Project Management
“Values” is a buzzword that risks being abused into oblivion. But despite the hype, clarity about what’s important to us is a powerful lever for making us more successful according to our own definition of success.
Whether we’re conscious of them or not, our values (organizational and personal) define our behavior. One of the reasons “values” gets a bad rap is that organizations and individuals often claim values that aren’t reflected in their actions. Don’t tell me you value honesty while describing the neat trick you found for cheating on your taxes. Continue reading Identifying What Matters Most
I consider the most important values of an organization to be those that define how we treat each other. Here’s an example of such values that I developed with one of my clients. 
Perhaps there are some useful points here that you can adopt (or adapt), but be careful: Never claim a value as your own unless you’re willing to live every word of it. Don’t destroy your credibility by saying something’s important that you’re not willing to be held accountable to.
Continue reading Defining How We Treat Each Other
I just finished reading another book on how to manage Millennials. As the most studied generation in history, there’s no shortage of perspectives available on the best ways to engage this generation and help them achieve their full potential. Since I often use the tagline, “helping young leaders become wise before they grow old”, 
I appreciate gleaning from the wisdom and experience of others on this topic. However…
Continue reading Different Is a Good Thing
Throughout my career, responsibilities always came to me before titles. And I usually gave responsibilities to others before giving the corresponding titles. If this seem unfair, it’s more considerate than giving a title too quickly and having to take it away when it doesn’t work out.
So rather than feeling under-appreciated when you’re given assignments that fit the next position up the ladder, consider it a sign of leadership’s confidence in your potential. Continue reading Climbing the Corporate Ladder
One of the benefits of being a leader is that we have the privilege – and responsibility – of influencing others. When we speak, our followers listen.
But what do they hear?
Often way more than we intended to say. Continue reading Whispering Through a Bullhorn
