Belonging Over Baiting: Rethinking Leadership in the Business World
Am I a thought leadership purist, or an Nth-generation Puritan pilgriming around in the 21st-century business world? Maybe it’s both. Maybe I’m carrying around a multigenerational history grounded in individual conscience, a quest for autonomy, and a tendency to preach. Maybe it has a land-grabbing, witch-fearing underbelly, too, shivering in fear at the edge of […]
Navigating Complicity in Leadership
Sometimes, your own actions cause situations you say or think you don’t want. Maybe you say you don’t want to be responsible for everything, but your team has frozen up, passively waiting for your next arbitrary whim. Because it always goes down that way. There are countless examples. The brilliant Jerry Colonna talks about this […]
Unveiling the Power Play Between Lions and Foxes
Would you rather be a lion or a fox? I just went down the best Internet rabbit hole—and it’s full of allegorical animals! I didn’t know that Pareto (the “80/20 guy”) is also known for using the analogy of lions and foxes to describe that elite 20% that tends to hold 80% of assets. You […]
Mastering Authenticity in Your Content Strategy
Authenticity isn’t (just) a way to get what you want. Still, the “A” word has been a running theme in my discussions with clients about 2024. It’s generally a good principle. People trust people. Authenticity can anchor thought leadership, storytelling, community building, and connection. Content that is actually about what we have to say in […]
The Synergy Between Ideas and Stories
Seth Godin calls it story. I call it ideas. They function in many similar ways. They amplify each other. They spread. “The reason that our attention has been strip-mined is that the system that evolved seems to reward short-term players that take the direct, easy, and lazy way out. While it seems like we have […]