Keeping Remote Teams Engaged

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Timothy Gallwey on learning to change behavior: “By the word ‘learning’ I do not mean the collection of information, but the realization of something which actually changes one’s behavior—either external behavior, such as a tennis stroke, or internal behavior, such as a pattern of thought.” Source: The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance II. Developer Nicoll Hunt on the first step: “The first step of any project is to grossly underestimate its complexity and difficulty.” Source: N…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Hermann Hesse on things we all can do: “To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” Source: If the War Goes on: Reflections on War and Politics II. Henry Ford on the importance of giving value before you ask for valu…

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in August 2025 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month. Scaling Innovation: How Smart Companies Architect Profitable Growth by Madhavan Ramanujam and Eddie Hartman The brutal truth: most startups and scale-ups don't fail because of bad products. They fail because they never figure out how to grow fast―and profitably. Some chase market share at all costs, burning cash on customers who won't pay enough to sustain the business. Others over-monetize too soon, pushing away the customers they need to reach scale. Still others obsess over customer loyalty, miss…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter on cultivating a mental focus: “As Al continues to advance and become more integrated into our working lives, it’s likely to further exacerbate the challenges posed by our already-distracted and data-filled environment. This new reality needs—no, demands—a proactive stance. Leaders who want to be successful today and tomorrow must commit to a more rigorous practice of cultivating inner stillness. They need to develop a deliberate, meaningful approach to managing the inner game of leadershi…

Here is a selection of Posts from July 2025 that you will want to check out: 4 Lessons on Selecting the Right Leader for Your Organization from Guardiola and Silva by @BrianKDodd King's Legacy Continues to Serve by @jamesstrock Our Founders' Humanity Renders Their Example Compelling The Power of Self-Reflection: Transform Your Life from Within via @lifehackorg Leon Ho What is The Foundation of Achievement? 3 Leadership Lessons from Ichiro Suzuki’s Hall of Fame Speech by @BrianKDodd BREAK THE PLATEAU: How High Performers Raise Their Game When the Spark Fades by @AlanSteinJr Don’t Let Five Bad Minutes Steal Your Day by @TheDaily_Coach Our ability to pause, reframe, and …

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in June 2025 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month. The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies by Robert E. Siegel A groundbreaking blueprint for mastering “cross-pressures” in a rapidly changing world, teaching leaders to execute and innovate, think locally and globally, and project ambition and statesmanship alike—from a Stanford Business School lecturer and consultant to some of the biggest and most innovative CEOs. Part of the problem is that these challenges, while acutely felt, are rarely articulated in…

Here is a selection of Posts from May 2025 that you will want to check out: Disagree with the direction? Don’t just sit there – here’s what to do instead by @suzimcalpine John F Kennedy and the Art of Becoming by @jamesstrock The Importance of Leading in Small Places by @PhilCooke Memorial Day | Gratitude, Humility, Resolve by @JamesStrock National Pride, International Precarity. 3 Signs It’s Time to Recharge Your Leadership Battery by @WScottCochrane Turning Adversity Into Advantage: The Championship Mindset by @AlanSteinJr Writing a Book? You May Need Professional Help by @wallybock What Comes Next Isn’t a Product. It’s a Provocation. by Nicholas Negroponte History t…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Rich Diviney on the notion of peak performance: “Repetitive peak performance is unrealistic because performance is often conditional. It typically requires a predictable and familiar environment. Repetitive peak performance is unrealistic because uncertainty is life’s foundational state. True success in life and business hinges instead on optimal performance, which means delivering your “best” in the moment, whatever your best looks like in that moment. However, sometimes your best is about persevering, moving forward step-by-…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Dan Thurmon on testing yourself: “When uncertainty and randomness strike, whether the immediate perception is threatening or exciting, you don’t take it personally. You simply see it as a new factor to incorporate into your life. This is not about the challenge coming at you. It’s about the challenge coming from you. It’s not what’s testing you, but how you are choosing to test yourself.” Source: Positive Chaos: Transform Crisis into Clarity and Advantage II. Dean Williams on helping people face challenges: “The first chal…

HOW do people learn? Simply put, when the reality does not meet the expectation. When we make mistakes. When we fail. And when we learn from those mistakes, we learn not only the correct way to go, but we gain a deeper understanding of the issue and thus are able to more easily apply it to similar situations. In other words, if we try to solve the problem before we are told how to do it, we learn better. Manu Kapur wrote Productive Failure with this in mind. “The idea of Productive Failure is to be proactive; that is, if failure is so powerful for learning, then we should not wait for it to happen. We should intentionally design for it for deep learning.” Kapur began h…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Nick Bare on intentionality: “Lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest.” Source: Go One More: Find the Clarity to Make Intentional, Life-Changing Choices II. Will Guidara on a point of view: “If you try to be all things to all people, it’s proof that you don’t have a point of view—and if you want to make an impact, you need to have a point of view.” Source: Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect * * * Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading …

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Sébastien Page on focusing on what makes us better: “Traditional goals focus on outcomes, while mastery goals focus on process. Both are effective. It’s important to set goals for process improvements. Don’t overemphasize outcomes over process. If you don’t examine your process and the quality of your decisions, in other words, if you only focus on outcomes, you may think you’re an absolute genius. As a leader, recognize that attaining your goal does not necessarily mean you’ve made good decisions along the way.” Source: The P…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee on prisons of our own making: “When we are in a downward emotional spiral, feeling confused, unhappy, or ill at ease, we often end up playing and replaying mental ‘tapes’ that actually accentuate our negative emotions and feelings of hopelessness. When we are feeling down over a long period of time, this self-talk centers on messages that undermine us and, in turn, our power to change bad situations (‘It’s not my fault’ ‘My life will never be really happy’) or messages that weaken our sense of …

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in May 2025 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month. Another Way: Building Companies That Last…and Last…and Last by Dave Whorton with Bo Burlingham Dave Whorton went on a journey to find a better way to build companies, a way focused on long-term stability and steady growth, funded through profitability; a way in which leaders were committed to a purpose beyond personal wealth generation, to putting their people first, and to setting up their companies to endure. He calls these companies "Evergreen." Another Way combines Whorton's inspiring story with hi…

Here is a selection of Posts from April 2025 that you will want to check out: The Opportunity Behind Every Closed Door via @TheDaily_Coach How Embracing A Low Point In Life Can Help You Grow Stronger by @LaRaeQuy A Few Short Stories by @morganhousel 3 Reasons To Challenge Outdated Assumptions by @JosephLalonde The 3 Daily Habits That Separate Champions from Everyone Else by @BrianKDodd The Top 3 Mistakes Leaders Make During Bad Days by @WScottCochrane There may be a book inside you. Should it stay there? by @wallybock Which Kind of Leader Are You? Reactors, Adapters, or Disruptors by @gavin_adams Canadian Nationalism No Longer an Oxymoron by @jamesstrock Canada is demo…

WHEN the path ahead is clear, leadership feels easier. You can plan, predict, and rally your team around certainty. But real leadership shows up when the road disappears. In uncertain times, leadership doesn’t collapse from lack of effort. It collapses because leaders mistake activity for clarity. In doing so, they lose momentum when it matters most. When the next move isn’t obvious, when conditions change faster than plans can adapt, leaders make their mark — not by guessing, not by waiting, but by having clear priorities, guiding principles, and a shared purpose strong enough to move through uncertainty. Forward leading involves the kind of thinking that turns obstac…

UNCERTAINTY is dominating business planning. The tariffs announced on April 2 could trigger “a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” according to hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Businesses and nations are locked into a complex, international web of trade networks, just-in-time supply systems, currency exchanges, and mutual competition. And much of it is underpinned by the US dollar. Far from the US being “forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful,” US GDP per capita is much higher than that of any other large country. Consequently, global shocks — perhaps arising from unilateral decisions on international trade, climate change, or a pandemi…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Rosabeth Moss Kanter on developing winning streaks: “Experiencing troubles is not all bad. Rather than interrupting the cycle of success, responding to adversity might accelerate it. New threats become less threatening when people have successfully solved previous problems. Potential leaders might become stronger when they have successfully resolved crises or weathered adversity. Troubles, in fact, might actually be good for winners.” Source: Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End II. Josh Linkner o…

ACHIEVING sustained success hinges on consistent and well-conceived preparation. If you fail to work hard and think hard during preparation, no amount of talent or performance under pressure is going to save you. This is something so simple and easy to understand, yet it’s a shortcoming I see over and over in sports, business, and life. I was the head coach of the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team for 13 seasons. It was a terrific ride that included three visits to the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament, a Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship, and three SEC Coach of the Year awards. Preparation was key to our success. To give a very basic example of the …

STUDIES show that executive mental health is in a precarious state: 55% of CEOs in a recent 2024 study, for instance, self-reported they were having issues with their mental health. Given how private leaders tend to be about the pressures they’re under, imagine how many haven’t come forward. There’s an unspoken truth in high-level leadership: CEOs and executives bear the weight of their organizations alone, whether they admit it or not. No matter how many advisors, direct reports, or leadership partners surround them, they remain the ultimate decision-makers. Most also operate under the assumption that their primary role is to support everyone else — driving growth, ensu…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. William Vanderbloemen on complaining: “Complaining gives us a lot of positive reinforcement. It makes us think we’re smarter than the powers that be, and it helps us bond with a group. Ask anyone who is friends with their very first coworkers from decades ago. Did breakfast sandwiches in the cafeteria and half-day summer Fridays bind them? Or was it a common enemy and a mutual sense of injustice that they could vent to another about? But complaining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It has a negative impact on your brain and, n…

HISTORICALLY, women have faced significant hurdles in employment negotiations. Here’s what we know about these barriers, plus strategies leaders can use to improve fairness in the workplace. The Barriers that Women Face In 2006, Carnegie Mellon University professor Linda Babcock and her colleagues published research showing that women tend to initiate negotiations, particularly salary negotiations, significantly less often than men do. The findings appeared to at least partially explain the enduring pay gap between men and women, which has remained frustratingly stable from 2002 to 2023. In a 2007 study, Harvard Kennedy School professor Hannah Riley Bowles, Babcock, a…

I didn’t start out as a founder. I started out as an arms dealer. Not in the literal sense — but in the early days of Silicon Valley, I was on the front lines of sales, business development, and corporate development. I knew how to close deals, spot trends, and move fast. I was valuable but always on the periphery of the real action. I was building. I watched teams turn ideas into companies and products into platforms. After a while, it became clear — I was contributing but not creating. So I made a move. I joined Ooma as a founding executive. We set out to reinvent home phone service and take on the telcos. It was bold and ambitious and taught me what zero to one reall…

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Eric Potterat on putting in the practice you need for success: “Effort is perhaps both the easiest and hardest aspect of mindset to practice. Easy because you know what needs to be done: more practicing, more studying, more exercising, more time. Hard because: more work. For some people (and many high performers) hard work is innate. They keep at it naturally; they don’t have to make themselves do it. But most of us are what I like to call “human”: we have a limit. When we reach that fork in our day when we could spend an hour…

OUR internal conversations may seem inconsequential, but they determine the success of every interaction. They hold secrets to how we can have authentic conversations with others. When CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently testified before the Senate regarding the breach of security using Signal’s group chat during an attack on Yemen, their carefully measured responses revealed something profound. As they faced direct questions about the Signal chat, including an accidental text that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, viewers witnessed a rare moment when the divide between Ratcliffe and Gabbard’s…