A “sandwich approach” for giving negative feedback to direct reports is a common method in which the negative feedback is sandwiched between two pieces of positive feedback. But this sandwich approach may be undermining both your feedback and your relationship…
A five-year study in the UK found that the mental health of 20% of the top performing leaders of UK businesses is affected by corporate burnout. It’s easy to blame burnout on the high performers themselves. After all, the stereotype…
Almost every leader wants to make more time for strategic thinking. In one survey of 10,000 senior leaders, 97% said that being strategic was the leadership behavior most important to their organization’s success. And yet in another study, a full 96%…
The millennial generation is proselytized to pursue their dreams. But this philosophy no longer works, or at most feels incomplete. And, as the jobless generation grows up, they realize the grand betrayal of the false idols of passion. So what does one…
“I get completely caught up in fire-fighting and can’t find the time to advance my longer-term priorities.”- It’s a common managerial wailing. We all have either used it ourselves or have heard people around us use it at work. The…
You sometimes hear managers complain that their organization has no strategy. This isn’t true! Every organization has a strategy: its strategy is what it does. Think about it. Every organization competes in a particular place, in a particular way, and…
The 18th-century polymath Jeremy Bentham once wrote, “Pain and pleasure govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.” Modern neuroscience strongly supports Bentham’s intuition. The brain’s limbic system, which is important for emotion and…
To make a good decision, you need to have a sense of two things: how different choices change the likelihood of different outcomes and how desirable each of those outcomes is. In other words, decision making requires both prediction and…
In today’s always-on, information-overloaded world, it can be hard to stay focused throughout the day. How often is one distracted by inner chatter during meetings? Or finds that emails are pulling one away from more important tasks? Most of us…
The new year is here, and for many it means resolutions. At work, this often translates into a vague desire to learn new things. But to really make consistent progress, one needs to make learning a habit. Habits are freeing because…