I’ve been watching reruns of the Ken Burns series The National Parks on PBS. It’s an in-depth look at the birth and evolution of our country’s national park system. Called “America’s best idea” by writer and historian Wallace Stegner, men both famous ( Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir )and lesser-known (Stephen Mather , Charles Young) were…
5 Lessons Learned from a Failed Project
Last week, I wrote about a powerful leadership lesson learned when my key project crashed and burned. People Equation reader Nancy asked about the lessons learned from that experience. Indeed, there were several. But first, the story of “The Institute”, the project that gave me both fits and gifts. . . Years ago, I joined…
Avoiding Verbal Spam
Sometimes a tweet just sums it up perfectly. Ben Eubanks tweeted: “Verbal Spam”. Creates quite the mental picture, doesn’t it? How often are you subjected to verbal “spam” in the workplace? Probably more often than you’d like. My first reaction to Ben’s tweet was to imagine people who blather on, saying nothing of value. …
Redemption
Have you ever led a high-visibility project that has crashed and burned? I have and it taught me a powerful lesson about how a leader can turn a failed project into redemption for an employee hesitant to “play big” again. Read on . . . The Back Story Many years ago, shortly after I joined…
Benefits of Blogging
We’re closing in on nearly a year of blogging here at The People Equation. It’s been a fantastic journey, one that Alexia Petrakos (aka The WPChick) recently chronicled in a case study. (Thanks, Alexia, for helping launch the blog!) Blogging has opened up my professional horizons and increased my visibility within the online community. It’s led…