Category: Blog
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36. The Three Reasons Decisions are Difficult
Making difficult decisions is the job of leaders. In this week’s episode, I describe the three reasons that decisions can be difficult and suggest that understanding this can be helpful to not only making the decision but also to how you communicate it down the line.
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35. What Exactly is a Mission Driven Organization Anyways?
I use the term “mission driven organization” a lot. And when asked, I’m always happy to define what I mean by that. But… I’ve learned through the years that my definition is not the one that matters.
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34. What The Beatles and Alec Baldwin Can Teach Us About Management
I often find interesting (and unexpected) inspiration and lessons from the most unlikely of places. In this week’s episode, I draw from the world of art, specifically music-making and film directing.
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33. When Proactive is Really Reactive
All leaders want to be proactive, not reactive. But here’s the thing: Just because you want to be proactive, be considered by others to be proactive, and do proactive seeming things, that does not mean that it’s true. In this week’s episode, I point out a simple way to frame up a discussion that can…
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32. When Optimism Becomes Denial
Optimism is a good thing, right? Absolutely! But… and this starts innocently enough… a sincere desire to be (and seem) optimistic can, over time, give way to something that is… not so good.
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31. We all have blind spots
You have blind spots. I have blind spots. And they can impact our approach and our success. Remember, blind spots are only problematic when we ignore them.
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30. Make sure you know what your Board really wants. As in… really, really wants.
I’ve seen it happen and often to tragic effect. Boards will hire a leader to bring about substantive change… only to find out later that the process of creating that change caused more friction and tension than anticipated. This week’s brief episode is a reflection on how best to prevent this sort of unpleasant surprise…
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29. The importance of external feedback
Some of us kittens look into a mirror and see a mighty lion staring back at us. Some of us lions see little kittens. Honest and clear-headed self evaluation is important… but alas this is a podcast about leading mission driven organizations and I’m no pop psychologist. Nevertheless, I believe that the parallels to leadership…
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28. How to Storytell the Mission
In my book, Saving Organizations That Matter, I describe the importance of “storytelling the mission”, that is, describing the work of an organization and its mission in a compelling and even emotionally stirring manner. In this week’s episode, I describe three quick tips for improving your ability to storytell the mission. Thanks for listening. And please…
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27. Six Reasons For-Profit Medicine is Bad for Your Health!
For-profits… non-profits… what’s the difference? In this episode, I provide six reasons that the movement toward for-profit health care has had some negative impacts on all of us. I suspect this is going to be a bit controversial but… I’ve seen what I’ve seen.
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