Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

Who in your professional life is memorable? - For the right reasons of course. Over the course of my career, I have had the privilege of working with some very senior people. (Not in in the sense of assisted living).  The best executives that I've worked with are the ones that can tell meaningful stories that are applicable to the business situation at hand. The also have an air of confidence about them and are extremely charismatic. But part of that charisma is being able to tell a good story.  There is one executive that I've become pretty close to where a book should be written about him. He should have his own Twitter feed-- he's that   interesting.  The course of your professional career should be about accumulating stories for you to tell to clients, customers, and employees.  You don't get to tell cool stories by settling in and being a cog .  When you have interesting stories to tell, selling becomes a by-product. It's a lot easier to rel...

The biography of Steve Jobs introduced me to the term Reality Distortion Field. Many leaders have a core competency of creating their own reality and a view of their organization that may differ from the views of the employees actually working within it. The rub comes when leaders try to get their employees to also buy into this reality.  Let me provide some examples of RDF messages.  RDF On: We have an entrepreneurial culture.  RDF Off: We give you a used laptop and have some rules and little structure. Good luck!  RDF On: When people leave our company it's because they've moved on to bigger and better things.  RDF Off: We don't recognize talent. If you fit a need that we have that we can sell, you're in. Once that need is gone, you can go wherever you want. RDF On: We are very collaborative. People share knowledge and work together to solve our client's most pressing problems.  RDF Off: We have a SharePoint site. But it's easi...

For those of you that now listen to Grown Folks music, there was a movie that came out when I was growing up called The Last Dragon. I must have watched it more times than I can remember. In it, there were riveting characters such as Bruce Leroy and Sho' Nuff. (Awesome!) The ending fight scene is the climax where all things come together for Bruce Leroy and he achieves "The Glow."  Where am I going with all of this other than to reminisce about awesome movies of my childhood? What you've accomplished when moving up and through the ranks of a well-recognized firm or organization is what I'll call "The Glow."  Bruce Leroy was lucky in the fact that The Glow for him was basically that a-ha! moment where everything came together and he kicked Sho' Nuff's as*.  For the rest of us, The Glow is that shine that we get as a result of working up and through the ranks for a recognized brand.  So if you leave, when does it wear off? Does i...

In going from a large organization (global with hundreds of thousands of employees) to a small organization (~200 employees), there can be an interesting phenomenon.  Meaningful communication between leadership and employees in a big organization is actually better than it is in a small organization. The key word here is "meaningful." In a small organization, the communication that travels fast is typically gossip. (I know because I'm a culprit.) Or in my case, when I resigned, I got a note from HR scheduling an exit interview only a few minutes after I had announced my resignation. Now that's fast! Disturbing. But at least something was efficient.  So what is the definition of meaningful communication? It depends on your audience. The key thing is that it depends on your audience. Did I say that twice?  If you didn't pick up what I was saying-- know your audience.  Also remember that communication goes two ways. Only dictators and narcissists - not mutuall...

If there's one thing that I do consistently, it's try to help others avoid what I think are the same mistakes that I've made.  Understandably, not everyone listens. Getting through a combination of emotion with confirmation bias can be near impossible. It's like never listening to your parents.  Who am I to tell you what you are going to experience?  I completely get it.  You have to get there on your own.  When you do get there, let me know. Then maybe you can help me figure out where to go next. 

For those of you that travel and bear the mark of SPG, Marriott, Delta, and American Airlines superheroes, I salute you. I too have gone through a phase of traveler entitlement. I bore the credentials that would make you wonder why I even paid a mortgage or drove a nice car. And then it all changed.  As soon as the switch flips that tells you that there is more to life than being able to pick your amenity for being a Platinum Rewards member, the oh sh*t moments begin to occur. The emotion behind the decision to stop traveling and get out of not just the rat race, but the perpetual rat 100 meter dash is overwhelming. It makes you see things in companies that you want to see. Maybe that's influenced by the number of entrepreneurial magazines you've read while waiting in the airport. It's definitely influenced by all the success stories of people that have left the grind before you that have gone on to bigger and better things.  Confirmation bias kicks in like a m*ther f*...

You can get so confused that you'll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place... ...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting. - Oh! The Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss If you are thinking about moving from an up or out management consulting firm to a no travel local model, The Waiting Place is where you will be. Use the time to decompress, get ...