Imagine using a wide, chisel-tip yellow highlighter to trace the eastern coast of Central America on a map.
Start at the southern tip of Texas and follow the curve of the Gulf of Mexico, around the Yucatan Peninsula and down the western Caribbean all the way to Panama, then continue east along the northern edge of South America until you reach French Guiana at about two-o’clock on the continental dial.
Somewhere in the mangrove swamps and dense tropical forests in that bright yellow highlighted band, there is an equally bright yellow prothonotary warbler.
Any day now, this bird—the exact bird in the photo, if fate has smiled on him since landing in your highlighter stripe last September—is going to begin a two-thousand mile journey to his breeding grounds in a swamp along the Ohio River where I photographed him last year, about 1.8 miles as the prothonotary warbler flies from my backyard.
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 little Abby, they had simply always been there. I think they occurred to her more like older siblings t...
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 and goes, and we can’t help but notice that we failed to do the task.
Do this once, and the result i...
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 buy-in, but it does not automatically result in commitment.
Commitment is required for team members to...
Untangled by Retexo
Work, life, and leadership in a complex world.
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