Blog
Find meaningful change in the way you communicate and build relationships for your success and the success of your organization.
Use Basic Skills and see them as essential
There was this point when I suddenly realized that life is made up of simply mastering the basic skills. Sure you can get to the fancy stuff, but only after you’ve become skilled at the basics. I’ve found this to be true over and over again, and never more true than...
Leader as the poet. Know where the water holes are
The South African writer Antjie Krog described meeting a nomadic desert poet in Senegal who described the role of poets in his culture. The job of the poet, he explained to her, is to remember where the water holes are. The survival of the whole group depends...
Modulate your Voice: Lessons for Leaders (from Watering a Garden)
I work with high powered people who express themselves with a force, an intensity, a volume, and a speed that often doesn’t take the readiness or the receptivity of their listeners into account. Being able to tend a garden in Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood in...
Everything I Ever Needed to Learn, I Learned Playing in the Streets of My Neighborhood
Growing up in NJ in the NYC suburbs, my friends and I, we had two educations. We had school and we had our hunter-gatherer education. We played in mixed-age neighborhood groups every day after school, often until way after dark. We played all weekend and all summer...
“It gave us a place to fail.”
"First and most important, Second City gave me a place to go; it gave me a place to function. That was the main thing. And the second most important thing, which was very, very close to the first, was that it gave us a place to fail. Which doesn’t exist in this...
Great Leaders, Make Your People Feel Seen
Great Leaders get their teams aligned with action, moving in the same direction and doing their best work. People who feel seen and feel safe are more loyal, productive and innovative. When Amy Poehler gave her commencement speech to Harvard graduates, she spoke about...
