And how soon is never? Most organizations are fundamentally incapable of planning ten years out. When a company promises to be carbon neutral by 2030, theyre actually saying that they may never be. Thats because almost all the pressures on them are short-term pressures. And it doesnt help that few people expect to be in…Read moreRead more

is surprisingly easy. Weve done all this work and things havent gotten better, so, apparently, we should stop trying and go back to what we were doing. Weve done all this work and things are getting better, so that means that theres no need to keep trying and we can go back to what we…Read moreRead more

Someone said that to me the other day and it was heartbreaking. The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. Just about everything else we need people to do is the result of effort, practice and care. Its true that variations of that work…Read moreRead more

The chief marketing officer at a big company has an impossible job. The typical duration of a CMO is 18 months because once the CEO realizes that hype for money cant solve their problems, they get restless. The problem lies in what people think marketing is. Marketing isnt paying for ads, changing the logo or…Read moreRead more

When innovation arrives, the logistics people have to scramble to keep up, because innovation always makes it hard to do things the way we used to. Over time, an innovative company thrives if it can get its logistics in order. Ship the right stuff to the right people on time and on budget. Once this…Read moreRead more

Time and focus and enery Sooner or later, theyre all finite. And the way we allocate our time and emotional energy determines what gets done. If we audited your day in six-minute increments, what would we find? By the clock, how did you actually spend the time you given to you (we each get the…Read moreRead more

It must be more than a coincidence that there are almost enough jobs for everyonea billion more jobs on Earth than there were a generation ago. Unemployment is debilitating and a real problem, but even high unemployment in many countries still means that most people have a job. Many times, its a job that didnt…Read moreRead more

This is a very different task than snake charming. The first is far more common, but it requires heavy equipment and is often dangerous On the other hand, if you have empathy and patience, its possible to learn to charm the snakes instead

When time gets short (for new parents or startup founders, for example) we naturally focus on getting efficient. We can remove extraneous details and distractions and magically get much faster at getting tasks done. But being efficient is not the same as being productive. Productive is the skill of getting the right things done, so…Read moreRead more

There is the kindness of please and thank you. And the kindness of I was wrong, I’m sorry. The small kindnesses that smooth our interactions and help other people feel as though you’re aware of them. These don’t cost us much, in fact, in most settings, engaging with kindness is an essential part of connection,…Read moreRead more