Category: Leadership
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Knowing where to make the mark
When something isn’t working right, you can spend a lot of time changing out parts of a process. You can continually run around, adjusting standards and methods, and hope for improved results. Or, you can study the system. Learn how the parts go together, what inputs drive the outputs, and identify why they don’t. Once…
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Yeah, this one’s stolen.
This quote has been plastered all over self-help books, TED talks, inspirational posters, and probably every Leadership blog published since 1997. It’s still a good one. You can interpret this one a lot of ways. To me, it’s a not-so-gentle reminder that sometimes I’m too smart for my own good. I can use my superpowers…
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Leaving an Impact
The quote above comes from an African proverb, attributed to the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe. It’s a powerful message; beautifully and simply stated. As leaders, we make lots of decisions. We interact with lots of people within our organizations. Our fingerprints touch onto so many things, it is easy to forget every single interaction. Yet…
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Listening to Understand
A reaction is a response, sometimes automatic. It’s an action or a thought programmed into our brains and triggered by a stimulus. When we’re faced with a situation, reactions happen. It’s important to understand they’re automatic, they’re not conscious efforts. And we shouldn’t base our actions on them. There are situations that require a swift…
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Don’t get eaten.
This one is an appropriation of a Chinese proverb, often translated as “Riding a Tiger is Difficult to Dismount.” The quote has a few interpretations and translations, and the way I read it, it’s a cold reminder that when doing something new, something risky, something novel, we have to stay vigilant until it’s done. That…
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Simple but Effective
Simple messages are sometimes the most effective. If you get good at producing consistent results, the questions about what you’re doing go away. If you’re not there yet, focus on consistent. Consistent isn’t standard, it’s not identical, it’s not perfect. It’s just being able to do the same thing, over and over again. Once you…
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Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #208
First quoted by Grand Nagus Zek, this rule of acquisition is actually a solid leadership principle. Knowing when to ask the right question is a key trademark of successful leaders. Curiosity is what keeps us fresh, keeps us engaged, and keeps us learning. Curiosity also killed the Cat. Sometimes there are questions where it’s better…
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The Power of Vision
Every year at the PFMI, I teach a class about data. It’s a scripted show honed over almost a decade’s worth of learning and experience of working with data. If a student walks out with anything, I want it to be this: Data analysis starts with questions, not data. You can take any data set…
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Original Creation
Not every message that lands on the board is a direct quote, a few of them are original creations. There’s a limited amount of space and a fixed number of letters I can use to create a message, leading to shortened quotes or lyrics that are randomly pulled from the middle of a song. Other…
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The master of the colloquialism
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) is considered the greatest humorist the US has ever produced. His work “The adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is considered a Great American Novel for capturing the essence of the American style. A key to Twain’s writings was his mastery of the local language, the colloquialisms and speech of…