Who is Actually Leading When I Lead? A program director I know once snapped at his project manager in a steering committee meeting over a two-day delay in a status update. It was a small thing. The room went quiet the way rooms do when the reaction doesn't match the...

The Reward Never Stops Costing You Something clicked on a scrap of paper this morning: no wonder we are too busy. We're not just chasing rewards. We're preserving them. And that second job never ends. Here's the pattern underneath most of what we call success: Effort...

There Is No Greatness in Serving Your Own For the people we care about, we give our resources and ourselves. We think about them when they're not in the room. We plan for them. We set aside what we've built so they can pressure-test it, prosper from it, evolve past...

You Cannot Be Told to Be Authentic A general manager I worked alongside used to open steering committee meetings by asking the hard question first. "Before we start, what are we not saying in this room?" It made people uncomfortable. It also made the program better,...