Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

My latest book binge includes the following:  MIndgym - Exercises to improve your mind just as you would improve your body by following a training regimen in the gym.  Contagious - Understanding "what" makes things go viral. The Smartest Kids in the World - An analysis of the dynamics of education in different parts of the world. In Search of Excellence - For all of you management consulting fans, this is where McKinsey's 7s framework is explained. Additionally, it identifies the 8 characteristics of excellent companies and is written in such a way that you don't have to be an academic to understand it.  Thinking Fast and Slow - An explanation of the two systems that drive the way we think.  Because I can't read two words out of any of these books to my son during bedtime without him completely ignoring me, I'll add Curious George Storybook Collection to the list.  In the book, it lays out the steps...

Unfortunately, to make sense of a messy, volatile world, leaders often shoehorn people into tidy categories that don’t reflect their full range of wisdom. - HBR - The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice If you join an organization that puts you in a box is it your fault or the organization's fault?  If your manager or leader doesn't understand all that you are capable of, is it your responsibility to inform him or her?  The answer is an emphatic "yes." The big BUT is that you have to put a limit on the number of times you tell your boss or manager what your capabilities are. The reality is that the reason that you've been put in a box is not because you haven't demonstrated your capabilities, it's because people naturally categorize things into the simplest form possible that they can understand.  If you are not being recognized for your capabilities and potential it may initially be for lack of communicating what those capabilities are.  But a...

In Dan Pink's TED Talk on motivation and in his book Drive , he talks and writes about the science of motivation.  There are three drivers of motivation.  Autonomy Mastery Purpose When we have these three things in play, procrastination is an after thought.  However, the Hawthorne Effect says that motivation can occur simply by being observed.  It's probably not exactly same thing, but I know that my motivation to perform better at certain sports increased when I knew that I was being watched or evaluated. So which is it?  As employees of companies, do we perform better if we are being observed or do we perform better if we have complete  autonomy to do what we want to do? Unfortunately, when we feel we are being watched too closely we call that voyeurism "micromanagement." If we feel that we aren't being watched closely enough, then we feel that we aren't being appreciated. Employees are a fickle bunch and this is w...

In today's world you are either a consumer of content or producer of content.  If you are like me, the majority of your day is spent consuming content via phone, PC, television, tablet, etc...  Many of us suffer from what my 4 year old suffers from which is a case of the FOMS or FOMO- fear of missing something or fear of missing out. When I read about people that get millions of hits on YouTube or have millions of Instagram or Twitter followers, I realize that they are predominantly producers of content or creators of some kind of art or intellectual property.  At some point in our lives, in order to become successful I think we need to balance the consumption and production of content- or at least minimize the consumption of content to the stuff that really matters to us.  In other words, the ability to filter through all the noise becomes more important than ever.  When it comes to consuming content that really has no bearing on where ...

If you are a conspiracy theorist like I am, you believe that your company is either for you or against you. It's a ridiculous thought because a company is not a living, breathing, biological organism with intelligence. But how many times have we referred to our organizations as "the man." (For those of you that can remember that term.)  Because companies are made up of people and run by people. And because people naturally judge others and label them, it's only natural, by the transitive property, to say that companies judge and label their people.  Whether it's under the guise of the performance review or just blatant nepotism, all of us in an organization of measurable size - say greater than 100 people - see and are a part of factions, cliques, and social groups.  From an employer perspective, employees are probably on one list that's associated with one thing - cost.  But from an employee perspective, you probably see yourselves on one of these t...

When you are in a challenging personality situation at work, is it a good idea to bring all of the right people together and lay all of your cards out on the table? For example, you know that you are not in a good political situation and from a career perspective, there is limited upward mobility, or any mobility in general, because of it.  What do you do? Any smart and aware person knows and feels when the situation is not a good one.  Any smart and aware person would instinctively want to have that difficult conversation with the right people in order to clear the air and either affirm what he / she perceives to be true or work to close the gap between the perception of the situation and what others think. Unfortunately that is a very, very bad idea.  Many of the environments that we work in are not safe environments. Or, as Simon Sinek likes to refer to in Leaders Eat Last , there is no circle of safety. Many leaders, when put in a ...

Which is more important when it comes to climbing the career ladder?  Loyalty or capability?  The idealist in us would say that it's up to our company's management and leaders to recognize potential and capability and promote accordingly.  The Peter Principle states otherwise.  Look around you. More than likely, your peers are like you.  Look above you. More than likely, your leaders are not like you.  Therefore it's your job to try and be more like your managers and leaders and less like you if the gap is as wide as you perceive it to be.  The dilemma arises when becoming more like "them" distances you from your true self.   So do you continue the cycle when you get promoted and pick loyalty over capability?  Or do you break the cycle because it's the right thing to do?  Choose the latter. You and your company will be better off for it.