We recently saw the movie The Martian, starring Matt Damon. In the movie, the character tells himself: “You do the math. You solve one problem… and you solve the next one… and then the next.” “You solve one problem…” is a great mantra when you are facing challenges in your life, and feel overwhelmed and concerned that you will never survive what you are going through. In the movie, Damon’s character faced death daily, and at times he cursed…
This quote is a wonderful metaphor for all those times in your life when you have believed that you should abandon your needs for someone else’s. A successful life consists of negotiations—with spouses, children, bosses, co-workers, other drivers on the road, and the rest of the people that you bump into as you do life. Some negotiations are simple and they barely register on your radar, while others are big and require lots of thought and energy. When you’re faced…
As you may know if you have been a part of our community for a while, we really believe that communication is the basis for… well, for everything. And some of the most significant difficulties occur due to the lack of clear communication. Recently, we were in a meeting that blew up. There were raised voices and accusations, there was fury and disappointment, and there was the chance that one or more people in the meeting would lose their job.…
“I never thought being a grown up would be this hard.” This was a comment in a recent meeting with a number of very successful executives. By all appearances, they are highly effective grown ups. They have well-paying positions of authority in a medium-sized, highly successful company in the northwest. They all have families and most have children. They wear nice clothes and drive nice cars. Yet, they are struggling. How can that be? It’s hard being a grown up,…
Imagine you suddenly can’t feel one side of your face. You run to the mirror to see what’s happening and you realize that it’s paralyzed on that one side. Panic starts to set in as you try to figure out what’s going on… That’s what happened to Elizabeth Stewart one perfectly ordinary night after dinner as she watched TV with her husband. “It was like having a nightmare and I kept hoping I would wake up!” Elizabeth told us. Her…
We love the entertaining and quirky TV show Grimm that is filmed and set in our hometown Portland, Oregon. The show is described on the NBC website as: A modern twist on the Grimm Brothers’ tales. It’s often a fun romp and it always starts with an interesting quote. A recent episode started with: I’ve been bent and broken . . . but I hope into a better shape. What a wonderful depiction of life’s journey. It spoke to us especially deeply as we each…
“All you can do is give it your best shot.” We often hear people say this as a bit of a throwaway, not fully understanding what it can mean in your life. We know that life is filled with challenges. You started the new year and whether you made a list of resolutions or not, you likely had some thoughts about how you would like 2016 to go. Since that day, less than a month ago, more has happened than…
You were asked to lead the change. Everyone you spoke with wanted to move forward. You kicked into gear to get it done. And, now everyone is furious with you… What happened? People are messy. The thing you must remember is that when people are asking you to make things better, they rarely consider that they may need to change their own behaviors and patterns in order for that to happen. They can imagine that you will address their…
Last week, we started the conversation about meetings with our post, Meeting Madness. In it, we outlined the roles and rules that help to create great meetings. But no discussion of meetings would be complete without reviewing the importance of creating and using an agenda. An agenda is to a meeting like our skeleton is to our body: it provides the internal structure that allows the meeting to successfully come to life. Research on meetings has shown that whatever the group…
“I cannot get my work done because all of my days are spent in *^#@ meetings!” Sound familiar? Meetings are supposed to be a means to success, but most people in organizations describe meetings as a time-suck that actually prevent them from getting their work done. We’d like to suggest that at the beginning of each year, you take time to inventory your meetings to decide if they are adding value and contributing to your success… and if they…