What Every New Manager Needs to Know
Being asked to lead a team of people as a new manager means taking on accountability for both the production of the team as well as the individual performance of each team member. Some people step into a leadership role naively self-confident …
Check Your Premises
Good decision making requires the maintenance of rational thought – and few things are more conducive to that objective than an adherence to something most of us were taught in middle school: the scientific method. The scientific method encourages us to develop …
Dr. Laura & The Pursuit of Clarity
William F. Buckley was the founding editor of a publication called National Review. He also hosted a TV program called Firing Line from 1966 to 1999 where he and another intellectual would have a deep and almost always insightful conversation for a …
Productivity – Some MindSet Thoughts
One of my more intellectually interesting and inquisitive friends recently asked me an interesting question: What is the most potent driving force for spurring productivity? It was a question that I had not previously considered. As I now reflect, it seems that …
Dear Seeking Wisdom
The short essay below comes from an advice column written by a lady who goes by Dear Sugar – her real name is Cheryl Strayed. Dear Sugar received a letter from a reader (who used the name: Seeking Wisdom) asking Dear Sugar …
So You Have A Culture Code, Now What?
Most companies have a list of cultural values. The existence of such a listing is neither meaningful nor impressive unless the company can specify what it’s DOING with those values. A more current term for “values” is Culture Code – and it’s …
How Do You Listen?
Leaders do a lot of listening. We just often do it wrong. Jennifer Garvey Berger, the CEO of a London-based coaching and consulting company called Cultivating Leadership, has laid out a brilliant model for categorizing three types of listening. It is smart …
A Huge Deal: Crap Detection
In 1914, Professor John Alexander Smith addressed the first session of his two-year lecture course at Oxford as follows: Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies that (will) form a noble adventure…Let me make this clear to …
Survey Data Shows Higher Employee Morale
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, MindSet offered a free survey to help organizations monitor employee morale during the COVID-19 crisis. The survey report has helped executives better navigate through what has been, for many, challenging times. With more than 30 …
Keep Hope Alive
There is a phrase first said by Jesse Jackson on July 19, 1988 at the Democratic National Convention. He was addressing the convention having lost a nomination battle to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Although I have heard the phrase repeatedly over the …
