Prior to taking a management role, you can measure your contribution to the organization by counting the number of important problems you solve. But the day you become a manager, the arithmetic changes. Your success is no longer measured by how many problems you solve. Instead, your role is to build a team that solves problems. Anytime you become the hero by solving the problem, you risk teaching your team that without you, the situation is helpless. Over time, and with repet

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal pointed out that “All of humanity’s problems come from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” He didn’t mean sitting quietly in front of a laptop responding to emails. The best thinking comes from structured reflection — and the best way to do that is keeping a personal journal. Dan offers up his own experience as CEO and chairman and how simple techniques helped him become better at his job by finding time for reflection. Read

The core challenge for modern leaders is to become more wholly human – to actively develop a wider range of capabilities and to more deeply understand themselves. The first step is deepening self-awareness. We can’t change what we don’t notice. What are your signal strengths? What does it look like when you overuse them? What potentially balancing qualities have you undervalued? Read more...

How often have you put off doing something fun, like taking a trip or treating yourself, because you felt that you had too much work to do, and you had to get it all done first? Findings from our experiments suggest we may be over-worrying and over-working for future rewards that could be just as pleasurable in the present. We’re all familiar with the ideal of delayed gratification. American workers work longer hours and take fewer vacations than anyone in the industrialized