Over the last few weeks, the same conversation keeps coming up with the leaders I coach. They tell me how well their businesses are doing—record first-quarter sales, overflowing demand, and maxed-out teams. They’re even considering hiring more people. Then, without missing a beat, they say, “But I think we might have to lay some folks…
Walking into a meeting, my head is caught in a web of worries – we missed our sales target, I’m disappointed with the lead generation, and several projects are running behind. My irritation flares as the agenda items feel irrelevant to my immediate concerns, and soon, the meeting descends into unproductive conflict. On a different…
You’ve got too much to do and not enough time to do it in. As a result, you’re scanning your inbox, firing off decisions, jumping from one meeting to the next. It feels productive, like you’re getting things done. But at the end of the day, you’re spent—and somehow, your inbox has more emails than it did…
When you have a diverse team of people with different skills and abilities who are all accomplished in their chosen fields, they will likely see the world differently. (This is a feature, not a bug!) Imagine asking your sales leader, head of production, and controller to review your company’s financial statements. Will they agree on…
I was recently a guest on Kimberly Seldon’s “Business of Design” podcast, and she hit me with a zinger right off the top. What one thing are people doing that is really ruining their chances of succession? Immediately, I said, “ Staying involved in the client’s work.” The more time you spend on client work, the…
At the beginning of this year, I decided to stop complaining. I noticed that I tended to complain about things I didn’t feel I had the agency to do anything about. Whether it was the daily news, long-standing intractable habits of my family members, or business dilemmas that didn’t go how I wanted them to,…
When I was given the chance to lead in a corporate setting, I (quite naturally) copied the leadership models I saw around me. Some leaders delivered results with a lot of top-down “command and control” behavior. Others would try to serve their team by being the hero, swooping in to save the day whenever there…
A group of agency owners recently told me their most significant obstacle to having more “best days” was simply too many meetings. They felt overwhelmed, with no time to process one conversation before diving into the next. While scheduling adjustments can help, the real solution lies in fundamentally shifting how you are being in those…
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” — Charlie Munger Last week, I talked about who I was on my best days and how different that person was from me on my worst days. I want to be that best-day-Brad more often! So I looked again at…
I have my good days and my bad days. I’m sure you do, too. Both of those people are me. Both use my talents and abilities in the best way they can see to use them in that moment. One creates empowered, aligned leaders, and the other creates resentment, fear, and chaos. Having more “good…