Hi Reader, The meeting ends on time. Everyone nodded along to the decision. No one raised an objection. Walking out of the room, it felt like alignment. Two weeks later, three different versions of "what we decided" are circulating through the organization. One leader told their team the priority shifted. Another told their team it didn't. A third hasn't mentioned it at all. Nobody lied and nobody meant to cause confusion. And yet, somehow, the team wasn't aligned at all. This is one of the...
12 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, We recently wrote about the science of hope and one of the most important lessons it teaches us: hope is not simply optimism. Hope is the belief that a better future is possible and that there is a believable pathway to help create it. That distinction matters because hope doesn't just shape how people feel—it shapes how they perform. Research has found that hopeful employees are more creative, achieve higher levels of performance, experience greater well-being, and are less likely...
19 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Imagine your CEO unexpectedly stepped away for six months. Not permanently, but just long enough that the organization couldn't simply wait it out. What would happen? Would priorities remain clear? Would major decisions continue to get made? Would the culture feel stable? Would the Executive Team step forward and collectively be able carry the organization forward? Or would everyone begin looking for the person who normally has all the answers? Most organizations think succession...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, Today's newsletter is guest-written by our good friend Sam Spurlin, the founder and principal consultant of Deliberate Works. Deliberate Works helps leaders craft ever better organizations by building their own internal capacity to change gracefully and deliberately. What makes the best stories feel real, even when set in fantastical environments, is the internal coherence of the world in which they exist. Before a single character speaks, they've worked out how the economy...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Hi Reader, We often assume people aren't speaking up because they don't feel safe. We assume people are afraid of being judged, criticized, creating conflict, or damaging relationships – in other words, we assume that team psychological safety isn’t strong enough. And while that certainly happens, research suggests there may be another reason that is even more common. People stop speaking up when they no longer believe their input will lead to meaningful change. Think about what happens when...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Many organizations desire to be more innovative. They wish they had more people bringing forward new ideas, solving problems creatively, and finding better ways to serve customers and clients and advance the mission and strategic goals It's usually not for a lack of good ideas. When teams struggle to bring new ideas to life, it's usually a conditions problem. It usually goes something like this: someone identifies an opportunity and brings forward a new idea. The team likes it, but...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, I’ve realized recently that our team adopted an accidental agreement we never actually discussed. Joe calls it: Slack Zero. Anybody who has ever been in a Zoom meeting with me and caught a glimpse of my inbox usually gasps. I am absolutely not an Inbox Zero person. But Slack? Completely different story. Without ever formally talking about it, our team collectively drifted toward a norm where Slack messages get answered almost immediately. This norm came from a good place – we all...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, If you haven’t seen Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, the premise is pretty ridiculous. One real person, Anthony, believes he’s attending a legitimate company retreat for a hot sauce company. Everyone else around him is an actor, and the entire environment is staged to create increasingly awkward and absurd situations. But somewhere in the middle of all the chaos and comedy, you unexpectedly get a picture of what a truly great teammate looks like. What makes Anthony so...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, We go to great lengths to find the right people for key leadership roles. Unfortunately, after all that effort, new leaders often step into team dynamics that limit their ability to offer the fullness of their experience and unique gifts. Sometimes it's because teammates don’t intentionally try to connect with them. Other times it's because their new teammates think it's solely up to the CEO to integrate them into the team. From the perspective of the new teammate, they are often...
3 months ago • 4 min read