


Our thoughts on work, life, and leadership in a complex world...
Where Real Life Happens
I started to write a different piece this week, my first after taking the summer off from writing, but there was something in the way.
The story begins with dogs and kids. You see, when our daughter, Abby, was about three, we had two dogs, Marlee and Neo, both standard size labradoodles. For lit...
Oct 22, 2025
The Six-Source Model of Behavior
Every manager has been there. A task was assigned. The expectations seemed clear and understood. Time passes. It doesn’t get done.
Every parent has been there, too.
In fact, we've all been there with ourselves.
We tell ourselves, “I must do Task A by the end of the day on Tuesday.” Tuesday comes ...
Jun 09, 2025
Results Matter
Conquering each of Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for overcoming the next.
Trust must be present for a team to engage in productive conflict, but it does not guarantee they will do so.
Conflict is essential for achieving clarity and bu...
Jun 09, 2025
The Essential Discomfort of Accountability
We are building a robust structure for high performance. Over the past three weeks, we have laid a foundation of vulnerability-based trust that enables the next essential behavior, productive conflict.
Through productive conflict we can create clarity and buy-in, which makes real commitment possi...
Jun 09, 2025
Fear of Commitment
In the last two newsletters, we established that a foundation of vulnerability-based trust enables a team to have productive conflict. Why is that important?
Because without productive conflict, without hearing the fears, objections, opposing viewpoints, and competing, conflicting, or just plain ...
Jun 09, 2025
Why Conflict is Essential
Last week we established that Vulnerability-Based Trust is foundational for a high-performing team, because it enables the second essential behavior, Conflict.
I have been working with Patrick Lencioni’s Five Behaviors for quite some time now. I’m sold on the idea, and Lencioni is certainly not t...
Jun 09, 2025
Vulnerability-Based Trust
I think the world would be a better place if a lot more people got comfortable with a simple, three-word phrase:
I don’t know.
Jun 09, 2025
Masters of the Mental Game
You might hate golf. Maybe you hate the idea of watching it on TV even more than my sixteen-year old.
If so, bear with me. Although the storyline is Rory McIlroy’s 2025 victory at The Masters, this isn’t really about golf.
This is about a person who has fully embraced the fact that what happens b...
Jun 09, 2025
What Does Life Want From You?
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us." -- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I think of this quote often, because I catch myself struggling with the more common inverted query, “what do I want in life?” It turns out that is actually a pr...
Jun 09, 2025
Patience or Pursuit?
My average word count has been creeping up these last few weeks, so I’m compensating this time by keeping it short.
Also, it’s spring break, and I’m taking one! Hopefully you are, too. These pauses in life’s routines allow the mind to relax, zoom out and find patterns that tend to get lost in the...
Jun 09, 2025
The Inevitability of Unwanted Experiences
Here in Arendelle
The winters can be… well…
Let’s just say it’s not so very good
But even at this latitude
We’ll keep a happy attitude
Until we burn our final piece of wood
See, there’s a word we live by
To keep our feelings great
You don’t have this word in English
But allow me to translate
Hygg...
Jun 09, 2025
Is Culture Change Really Possible?
“I would regard it as a sentence to hell if they gave me some company with a million employees to change the culture.”
That’s what the late Charlie Munger, long-time partner to Warren Buffet, said when asked about culture change.
Munger was being asked to respond to promises by newly appointed CE...
Jun 09, 2025
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