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Leadership

From One Clueless Guy to Another

Rarely does an email from a company capture my attention. Most are self-serving, safe, and dull. But Shawn Parr of the marketing firm Bulldog Drummond does it differently. He makes sure the emails from his company are always interesting and insightful. The most recent one touches on a theme more of us clueless guys need to be aware of. So I decided to share it here (with his permission). I think you’ll enjoy it.

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At the end of last summer, I invited my friend Michael to dinner as his wife was out of town. We hadn’t seen each other …

Junkyard Management, Leadership, Salvaged,

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 from big mistakes.

One of the chapters I didn’t write for Salvaged was Make a Small Mess. It’s the same principle, but in a distinctively junkyard mindset. Whatever you might do is likely to create a mess. So keep it small. See if the results are worth the mess. Experiment with a small mess before making a really BIG mess.

Pretty cool idea, don’t you …

Leadership,

Please Don’t Call Me a Thought Leader

Please don’t call me a thought leader. Last week I had coffee with an acquaintance who used the phrase to describe me. He meant it as a compliment — and I took it as such. But I still corrected him.

“No,” I insisted, “I’m not a thought leader. Please don’t call me that. It’s an overused term most people use to self-describe themselves so they can build a platform on Twitter or something like it. It’s the most overused phrase in our “leadership” culture.”

Since I was already on a rant, I continued with, “Besides, all those self-appointed thought leaders …

Leadership,

Leadership Work Ethic

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book Leadership: In Turbulent Times then I highly recommend it. I’m currently reading it and can’t put it down (okay, so I’m actually listening to the audiobook, but I still can’t turn it off!).

The author profiles four Presidents — Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. All four were very different people, living in different times, with different challenges. But all four had fascinating similarities, and she weaves their stories into a fascinating narrative.

One thing all four had in common was an intense work …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

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.

He’s in his mid-30’s, an intelligent guy, married with kids, doing his best to live a faithful life. There’s much to admire about this young man, and I wanted to say that up front because I’m about to make him sound really stupid.

He asked to meet with me, and the timing worked, so I agreed. Eventually, awkwardly, he got around to asking me if …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

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 — we should probably learn far more from our successes. But being wrong about something and having it blow up in our face is a huge growth opportunity. And we need to give our team the opportunity to make those mistakes.

A few years ago I was enjoying a glass of wine (and probably a cigar) with a leader who had built a successful organization. He …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

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 a long shadow.” Indeed it does. Anyone who has worked under wise and responsible leadership knows how it can permeate an organization with healthy values. Alternatively, anyone who has worked under foolish and irresponsible leadership knows how corrupting it can become.

So yes, leadership casts a long shadow. But ownership might cast an even longer one. Certainly this is true in business — who owns …