Prophets vs Leaders
A friend of mine is sometimes described as more prophet than leader; he’s excellent at preaching truth in cultural context, but weak at organizational leadership. He can cast a vision and challenge us, but he…
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Junkyard Negotiation
Every interaction at a junkyard ultimately comes down to who pays for the donuts or who eats the most donuts. Okay, so not really, but almost all conversation involves some kind of negotiation or competition….
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Blues Brothers, Junkyard Style
Remember the scene in The Blues Brothers when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd drove the decommissioned police car through Chicago in a classic chase scene? The other day I had a flashback of an experience…
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Six Ways to Motivate
Last year I was invited to write an article for Outreach Magazine about how to motivate your team. I’ve reworked the article to make it a little edgier and shorter for my Junkyard Wisdom audience….
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Make a Small Mess
Make a small bet. It’s an organizational maxim meaning to test an idea or run an experiment on a small scale before investing significant time or money. It’s a great practice that has saved me…
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What Do You Want To Learn?
In my upcoming book Salvaged there’s a chapter focused on the power of asking good questions. A recent question I asked of a young man who wanted to be mentored is a case in point….
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The Opportunity to be Wrong
A simple way to broaden your leadership impact is to give your team the opportunity to be wrong. The old mantra “you learn from your mistakes” can be taken to an extreme of course —…
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Ownership Matters
Hopefully we can all agree that ownership matters to the success or failure of an endeavor. But I think we still undervalue the importance of ownership. You may have heard the old maxim, “Leadership casts…
