Author: admin

Working harder is not the answer. I was in my third year at Google, trying to prove myself by earning a promotion by working late into the night and on the weekends. But despite how much time I spent at work staying on top of my email and going to meetings and preparing slides, I…

Managing yourself is an essential component of effective leadership. People often think that leadership is about getting people to report to you so you can manage their work. But they forget to manage their most important employee: themself. Managers will spend time in 1:1s each week to walk through the top priorities of each of…

I’ve been thinking a lot about Anu A.’s post Make Something Heavy (link in comments), where she wrote: “Creation isn’t just about output. It’s a process of becoming. The best work shapes the maker as much as the audience. A founder builds a startup to prove they can. A writer wrestles an idea into clarity….

Ten great free lessons from top instructors on Maven on how to improve your leadership. And I’m not just saying that because one of the featured lessons is mine 😉

Why is it that people who use LLMs extensively rave enthusiastically about their conversations? LLMs are patient listeners who start any response with positive encouraging feedback, and then build on whatever you said. They are basically playing the “Yes, and…” improv game constantly, which provides constant validation for the user. The downside of this is…

Leadership is the skill of getting others to follow you. People think that becoming a leader means waiting for somebody else to make you a manager or declare you a leader. They think that people will listen to them if they work their way up the promotion ladder. But a manager that has no way…

I dropped the Kindle price of my book to $2.99 for Amazon Prime Days this week. I wrote the book to share what I learned in my own journey after burning out while chasing a promotion at Google. After several years of coaching leaders to have more impact, I realized that I was repeating the…

What will the role of humans be in a world of AI? This is a question on many people’s minds as AI is upending everything we know about our jobs, our work and how companies operate. It’s a particularly thorny question for leaders as they make plans for their teams and organizations despite the rapid…

I really liked Nadia Asparouhova’s book Antimemetics, exploring the memetic landscape we inhabit (and create!). Everybody is now familiar with memes, those pieces of content that go “viral” and “infect” the mass consciousness by spreading rapidly across social media. These memes tend to appeal to the lowest common denominator, being light or fun or cute…

One insight can change your career. That’s the principle behind Maven’s Lightning Lessons, 30-minute webinars taught by experienced industry practitioners sharing their learnings. I was honored to learn that Maven selected my talk on How to Unlock Your Executive Potential as one of their top Lightning Lessons. In it, I shared three crucial mindset shifts…