Learning to Change:  Get Results + Develop Agile Leaders

I had the honor to keynote at the Human Capital Institute’s Learning and Leadership Development Conference last week, and spoke about the challenges (and opportunities) we have in building Change Intelligent leaders and cultures.  See if this story sounds familiar: Amy is the SVP of HR of a large manufacturing organization that has grown significantly by acquisition […]

PLAY is Serious Business!

It’s vacation season and hopefully you’re getting some well-deserved rest and relaxation. On vacation it’s easy to switch into play mode – chillax, unwind, and have fun. But what about at work? Doesn’t seem to evoke those same ways of being. Especially for those of us in the trenches charged with the demanding task of […]

Change Your Language, Change Your Life

The holiday season can be filled with joy and happiness – and it can also be brimming with overwhelm and obligation.  The year-end can be experienced with a sense of well-deserved peace and closure – or regret or resignation about goals not accomplished.  We can sometimes even feel all these emotions at the same time!  […]

How Does an Engaged Work Culture Thrive for 25 Years?

  Twenty-five years ago the ground broke in a cornfield in Indiana for an innovative new type of steel mill.  Nippon Steel of Japan and Inland Steel of the U.S. partnered with the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to construct I/N Tek and I/N Kote.  The mill broke new ground both in its “technical” system, […]

Work Culture Maintenance & Renewal

  A company’s work culture is a living, evolving entity.  At least, it should be if you want to effectively meet the many challenges that your organization will no doubt face, regardless of your industry or business model or geography. Change Intelligent leaders know they need to remain agile and continually adapt to stay relevant […]

What Can Winston Churchill Teach Us about Leading Change?

While in London, I had the pleasure of visiting the Churchill Museum, an extremely well-preserved vista into the past, displaying the underground rooms where Churchill, his ministers, military advisors and staff led the effort to win the Battle of Britain and ultimately World War II.  It was amazing to see history frozen in time, and […]

Voting for Change? Elect the Right Rewards!

Observing the current U.S. presidential campaign has me thinking about Steven Kerr’s classic article, On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B, which many have summarized as “it’s the reward system, stupid!”  In the article Kerr provides examples of reward systems spanning from politics to sports to organizational life “that are fouled up in […]

Leading Through Transition: 3 Powerful Tools to Equip Your Team

Dr. Bridges, a giant in the field of change management, shows us the distinction between “change” (what happens on the “outside” – be it a harrowing tsunami or a hostile take-over) and “transition” (what happens on the “inside” – our psychological and emotional reactions). As Dr. Bridges demonstrates, transitioning from the old to the new […]

4 Questions about Change Intelligence (so you can apply it today)

To help illustrate how CQ is relevant to change leaders like yourself, I thought I’d share with you some of the questions I’ve been asked about how to apply the principles of the book to your team or organization: With all the leadership books out there, why was it important for you to write this […]

Nurture Yourself Towards Optimism

Watch the news and it’s easy to be cynical – wars, crime, disease, natural disasters.  And yet, is this the reality of modern life, or the interpretation of it that’s reported?  Considering violence, as Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker notes, “things really are getting better…..headlines are a poor guide to history. People’s sense of danger is warped […]