Lessons In Leadership The Power of 3 The power of three is hardwired into our brains. From bedtime stories (The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, etc.) to literary trilogies (Sophocles, Trollope, Tolkien), three seems the right number. Even the stories of world religions and folk mythology use some sort of trinity – from the Three Magi to the three Fates. Aesthetically, […] Written by BPH October 8, 2020October 26, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Lessons In Leadership Don’t Be Right — Be Effective Shouting never helps. Is it me, or is everybody getting a bit overwrought these days? Election rhetoric tends to cause a certain degree of national divisiveness, but this year it is compounded by the added stress of pandemic concerns, economic woes, and social justice issues. Everything seems to be subject to debate, even such former […] Written by BPH August 28, 2020October 23, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Lessons In Leadership Are You Avoiding Me? Office conflicts are rarely as damaging as the effort to avoid them. Conflict avoidance can seem like good “adulting,” but sometimes it’s as effective as hiding in bed with a blanket over your head. I get it. There are times when we are just not ready to grapple with a thorny issue that someone keeps […] Written by BPH May 29, 2020October 23, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Lessons In Leadership What Have I Done For You Lately? The best cure for feeling unappreciated is to show appreciation. I suppose everyone is entitled to the occasional pity party. Even people in the C-suite. Some days it seems that no one knows how hard we work. No one treats us with the respect we’ve earned. No one gives us what we really want. Are […] Written by BPH January 31, 2020October 26, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Lessons In Leadership Looking For A Fight? Don’t get angry. Don’t get even. Get real. Do you ever have the feeling that someone is trying to pick a fight with you, but you can’t quite figure out why? It’s a lot like the schoolyard bully — some big kid who’d pick on you in hopes you’d take the first swing, so he […] Written by BPH January 23, 2020October 26, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Lessons In Leadership Waking to Win Why not losing is not the same as winning. The alarm clock goes off, the professional athlete jumps out of bed, walks into the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and starts the day with this affirmation: “Today I will try not to lose.” Huh? Who does that? Certainly not top achievers. People who succeed know […] Written by BPH April 5, 2019October 26, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Resiliency and Resolve Gearing up for the next marathon. I am by nature an optimistic person, but I have to admit that 2020 pushed me about as hard as I’ve been pushed in recent memory. That’s probably why I greeted the dawn of 2021 with an almost superstitious sense of optimism — as if a single night’s sleep […] Written by BPH January 15, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Unplanned Obsolescence Relevance is the outcome of choices and actions. I like to imagine that years from now I will be socializing with colleagues and, like old soldiers, we will recount stories from the darkest days of our careers way back in 2020. It’s taken a toll on everyone, in more ways than we can begin to […] Written by BPH December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Baby Steps Our preferences aren’t as logical as we think. Marketers have long obsessed with building brand loyalty, but the foundation of that loyalty may not be as logical as we’d like to believe. A recent Fast Company article reported that the researchers at Johns Hopkins who studied a group of babies found that when they randomly […] Written by BPH November 13, 2020November 16, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
When Empathy Trumps Authority Early lessons in leadership — #1. I’d love to tell you a story about myself as the child prodigy who led a fund drive to acquire new life-saving equipment — that I helped invent — to support the local children’s hospital. But for me, the path to leadership has been less Hollywood and more humbling. […] Written by BPH October 8, 2020October 23, 2020 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked