The Thoughtful Leaders Blog
Posted by Lisa Kohn on December 22, 2011
How can a stomach virus possibly be a good thing? How can it yield inspiration for a thoughtful leadership lesson? Am I being too “Pollyanna-ish” – looking for the good in situations and circumstances that truly only stink?
With nothing much to do yesterday but recuperate from the stomach bug that knocked me out two days ago, I had time to contemplate this…endlessly. Those who know me know that I always, or almost always, look for good in everything and everyone I can. Perhaps, some might say, to a fault. So as I lay in bed yesterday with nothing much to do because I didn’t have the strength yet to be productive, I thought this through.
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Posted by Lisa Kohn on November 10, 2011
 This weekend was about college visits. My daughter is a junior in high school, and because of the extremely long list of schools she might be interested in and her intense extracurricular schedule we decided to get a jump on visits and knocked three schools off in one weekend. And I had the greatest leadership epiphany, that some might actually call heresy.
As I watched my daughter slightly agonize over which school was a better fit, and where she might be happier and learn more, and where she should go, I realized (and shared) a very important concept. “It doesn’t really matter,” I offered her. “Pretty much any of them will be great – and you’ll love it and learn once you’re there.” From my outside perspective it made great sense. While some of the schools might be better for her than others, at least at this point it seems that none of her potential schools would be a “bad” choice, and any would be fine, depending on what she does with it and makes out of it.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on November 7, 2011
“If you don’t give people information, they’ll make something up to fill the void.” Carla O’Dell
We highly recommend “overcommunication” to our clients. We tell our clients, repeatedly, that they should share with others what they know, what they don’t know, what they can disclose, what they can’t disclose, why they can’t disclose something, when they might disclose something – basically everything possible. Because if they don’t – if they leave a void – the people around them will make something up.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on October 31, 2011
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Japanese proverb
When we guide our clients through personal and professional future planning, we share this quote over and over again. As many of us contemplate the future, we often either dream of our castles in the sky and yet do nothing to get there, or we keep moving and doing what’s in front of us without a thought about where we really want to go and what/who we really want to be. We forget to act in ways that will lead us to our ultimate goal or to even allow ourselves the time and space to figure out what our ultimate goal is.
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Posted by Lisa Kohn on October 27, 2011
I’m not sure where I first heard these two sentences combined. I do know that I repeat them, over and over, to my clients. Many of us grew up to Yoda’s (from Star Wars), “There is no try, only do.” We thought the little “guy” was cute, enjoyed his coaching Luke Skywalker, and maybe, every now and then, thought about not trying but instead just hunkering down and doing something. But taking things the next step by adding the second sentence, “There is no do, only be,” makes this concept even more real, and more pertinent to leadership.
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on October 20, 2011
In teaching the elements of high-performing teams, we use a model called GRPI (developed by Noel Tichy and Ram Charam among others) that has as its base – interpersonal relationships. It tells us that no matter how technically skilled a team is and how clear its purpose and goals are, without a foundation of great working relationships the team will not perform at its maximum ability.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on October 18, 2011
This time of year often signals the beginning of the end-of-year flurry of activities. On both personal and professional fronts, there are many things we “have to do” as we wrap-up 2011 and prepare for 2012. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a quick way to get more focused – more thoughtful and intentional – as you looked towards the coming year?
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on October 6, 2011
Recently I read a great article by Paul Tough in the New York Times Magazine entitled, “The Character Test.” The lead-in to the article posed the question: “What if the Secret to Success is Failure?” This question really grabbed me as we often teach the value of “failure” in our leadership programs. How valuable are the lessons and insights that come from failing? As they say in the MasterCard commercials: Priceless!
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Posted by Lisa Kohn on September 1, 2011
Years ago I was leading a group through our Increasing Performance through Strategic Thinking seminar and things were going great…until the end. The participants were all fired up about their new ideas. They were excited to make things happen for themselves and their organization with the innovative problem solving they’d engaged in and the strong solutions they’d developed, except for one little problem. “How will we convince all of ‘them’ to go along with our idea?” they asked. “How can we sell this to our team, or senior management?” they posed. “How can we really, actually, make this happen?”
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on June 30, 2011
 Performance feedback is a subject that generates a great deal of debate, angst, and even anger. Those receiving feedback quite often feel it is inadequate, vague, overly critical, or overly solicitous. Those giving feedback often feel they don’t have time for meaningful discussion, they did not deliver the message they had hoped to, or the reaction they received was not what they expected.
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