The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog
Posted by Lisa Kohn on March 29, 2012
 I will admit it. I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen play for the umpteenth time on Wednesday and I’m taking my teenage daughter with me. I’m excited!
And with Bruce on my mind this week and leadership always on my mind, I started thinking about some of the lyrics from his songs that have Thoughtful Leadership implications. “Talk about a dream, try to make it real” jumps out. I guess it helps that it was the caption in my high school yearbook as well.
Thoughtful Leadership encourages us to take the time, the reflection, to move toward realizing our dreams. Bruce suggests we try to make our dreams real, but how? We often have the best intentions, we even map out strategies and action plans, but the dreams that matter to us do not always happen.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on March 26, 2012
“You’ve got to ask. Asking is, in my opinion, the world’s most powerful and neglected secret to success and happiness.” Percy Ross
Recently a client was complaining to me about her current job. She felt underutilized, unfulfilled, and less than engaged. Yet she adored the company, and wanted to stay there…she just was at a point where her specific daily tasks left her empty.
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on March 22, 2012
 As you know by now, Thoughtful Leadership is a concept we feel strongly about and believe to be a key differentiator of great leaders. Often when we are in front of an audience and share our teachings about incorporating more thinking, reflection, and “being present” time into daily work and life, we get push back. “There’s no time to think,” we hear. “Just time to do.” In one recent program, a participant offered, “I don’t have time to breathe.” Wow, no time to breathe? Really?
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on March 19, 2012
“Listen a hundred times. Ponder a thousand times. Speak once.” Anonymous
I was taking a client through a 360º feedback assessment the other day and listening (or the lack thereof) was a major theme. He felt very strongly that he paid particular attention to listening to others and being open to their ideas, suggestions, and feedback, but the data in the assessment report showed differently. While he may have been trying to be more open to what others were saying, the feedback from his colleagues and direct reports showed that they did not feel that he really listened to them.
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Posted by Lisa Kohn on March 15, 2012
 This seems to be very blatant, obvious advice, yet I think it’s advice we can all heed – both in it’s specifics and in it’s overall concept: to make sure we’re fully focused when we communicate with others, put things in writing, and send them out through cyberspace.
When you’re out drinking, when your filters may be a bit less engaged, it is NOT the time to answer emails, or IMs, or even phone calls, of a work-related nature. You may feel charged to get one last thing done, or inspired with a pithy response or brilliant idea, but it is easy to say or type the wrong thing, dash off a nasty-gram, or use inappropriate humor when we are not really focused on our best communication.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on March 12, 2012
“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it.” Jonathan Winters
I like this idea. I’m not the best swimmer, but I’ve spent too much time waiting for ships to dock so that I can get on them and sail away. I love the visual of swimming out to meet my ship – finding it and catching it.
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on March 8, 2012
 My daughter came home from school very excited today because she was recognized by the faculty as a Bucket Filler. “Be a Bucket Filler” has been the theme around which lots of school activities have centered this year. What is a Bucket Filler, you ask? It’s a pretty simple concept really. We all have invisible buckets that we carry around. When they are full we are happy and when they are empty we are sad. When we help others, show kindness, exhibit patience, and be nice, we fill other’s buckets. When we are mean, impatient, rude, or uncaring, we dip into their buckets.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on March 5, 2012
“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” Henry James
Life gets very, very busy – and as we all get more self-involved and spend our time reacting to the tasks in front of us, we forget a true essence of life. Human connection. We become “doers” – getting things done, crossing things off of our check-list, taking care of the business at hand, answering our emails, checking our BlackBerrys, rushing to finish tasks and move on.
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Posted by Lisa Kohn on March 1, 2012
 I love the Oscars. Even if it is, as Billy Crystal said last night, “an evening of millionaires giving golden statues to other millionaires,” I love the Oscars. But I didn’t think I’d find leadership lessons in the over-three-hour show…but I did.
The first lesson that screamed loudly to me, even in it’s quiet, was the power of silence. Who would think that the award for Best Actor would be given to someone who, in a one-hour and forty-minute movie, speaks only a few words? And yet Jean Dujardin walked away with a golden statue because of his deafening performance and the impact he had while nearly saying NOTHING. Likewise, the Best Picture award went to The Artist. Again, one hour and forty minutes with nearly no dialogue, nearly no sound other than the accompanying music – with only a few subtitles now and then to help us follow the story line…and yet follow it we did. Because the actors conveyed so much without words. We knew their emotions. We knew their wants and needs. We knew their despair and elation. We were with them.
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Peace 
Good sound advise. In fact to go a step further, the right answer is the biggest killer of innovation. So thinking you know without exploring could be very short sighted.
Thank you for your thoughts. Innovation certainly does suffer when many possible answers, especially the “wrong” ones, are not brought to the fore.