I’m in the process of planning this summer’s Sierra backpacking trip. Maps, guidebooks, and random bits of equipment are heaped all around my house. Along with testing gear, dehydrating food, and packing, I’m plotting out my itinerary. One crucial bit of information I am researching and marking on all my maps: potential bail-out points. If […]
Tag Archives: Leadership
Comments Off on Strategic Planning Lessons from the John Muir Trail
One of my latest adventures has been joining the Sonoma County Search and Rescue Team (SAR). Many of our rules, tasks, and attitudes have applicability beyond the SAR environment. 1. Don’t create another victim. Our own personal safety always has to come first; if I get injured, my teammates now have to rescue ME instead […]
Comments Off on Lessons Learned from Search and Rescue
I’ve written before about my Year of New Things, and the transformative effect it has been having on my daily life. This summer, I went to Europe for the first time: six weeks of new countries, new cities, new food, new languages, new money, new transportation systems. I had a blast! When I got home […]
Comments Off on New Things: How Much Is Too Much?
In a previous post, I shared a list of Twenty Declarations – things I absolutely know to be true. I’ve added to them over time: 21. Ain’t no way out but through! 22. Don’t pre-plan your bummers. 23. You can’t think outside the box if you don’t know what box you’re in. 24. Creating and […]
Comments Off on Declarations by the Dozen
Some interesting research indicates that our body posture and movement affects our behavior. For example, expansive body postures – like standing tall with with hands on your hips – increases confidence and assertiveness. One study showed that people who hunched over a smart phone or tablet exhibited less assertive behavior immediately afterward than those who […]
Comments Off on Body Posture, or How Your iPhone is Turning You into a Wimp
These two M words crashed together in my mind as I lay pondering the meaning of the universe one recent night. I’d been working on a presentation about motivation for a local Toastmasters chapter on the same day that I’d had a meeting with the president of another association of which I am a member. […]
Comments Off on Membership and Motivation
My CalSAE colleague Shelly Alcorn writes a great blog called Association Subculture. She recently posted a great “back of the napkin” story sketch about association membership. So I decided I needed to draw mine! (Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger image.) When I went to library school in the 90s I joined a […]
As a facilitator, I have often worked with groups in the process of clarifying their common values. Inevitably, there is someone in the group who questions the value of this exercise. It is true that there are a lot of generic, meaningless values statements gathering dust in drawers across the nation. So how do we […]
Comments Off on Getting to the Core
As I wait for the shipment of my new book on apology to arrive…two excellent pieces on this very topic floated through my digital inbox. Yesterday, Forbes columnist Erika Andersen discussed the role of apology in leadership. I was particularly struck by the connections she makes between respect, responsibility, and courage. She and I are […]
Comments Off on The Role of Apology in Leadership
Recently, I spent a weekend camping near the coastal town of Mendocino with my sea kayaking club. This event is very loosely organized. Each morning, folks wander from campsite to campsite, coffee in hand, trying to organize their daily paddling itinerary. Eventually, cars start departing as groups head out to local launching points, windows down […]