In older days, “Clear the deck!” was a common command to prepare for doing battle at sea. The command focused attention, cleared visibility to gain a better perspective on the action, eliminated distractions and quickly channeled resources where they were needed most. Literally or fig

On October 22, 1707, four ships and at least 1,400 seamen of Her Majesty’s fleet were lost off the Isles of Scilly near England; the primary cause was miscalculation of longitude. On the night of April 14, 1912, the “unsinkable” luxury liner Titanic sank with a loss of more than 1,500

Most of you have witnessed (and perhaps been victims of) disappointing or even disastrous organizational change efforts. A 2010 IBM comprehensive global study of organizational change initiatives revealed that 60% of them fail; JCP (the retailer formerly known as J.C. Penney) is the l

Early on the second day of a client engagement, I found myself at the dentist’s. The nagging tooth ache that we thought a filling fixed had gotten worse; I needed to be “on” in a couple hours, and was leaving town early the next morning. X-rays were inconclusive about whether a root c

A new year lends itself naturally to reflection and planning, leading for some to make resolutions. My reflections and resolutions revolved mainly around what to let go of and what to make room for – what’s “out” and what’s “in.”  Of course organizations and their leaders need to make

Yes, I really do mean values proposition, not value proposition. We’re accustomed to thinking of an organization’s or business value proposition – the degree that it meets the needs, wants and requirements of target markets and customers. We pay less attention to how the values of an

Recently a colleague shared her distress with the turmoil, continuous change and what seemed like unrealistic expectations at her workplace. As she described the conditions and her reactions, I couldn’t help thinking how similar they were to those of mates I’ve sailed with who suffere

As summer transitioned to fall not long ago, it was time for our annual adventure in the BWCA. (For those farther afield, Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area is over a million acres of waterways and forest on the Canadian border, virtually as it was when the glaciers retreated 10,0

Do you remember laying on your back as a kid, looking up at the sky and figuring out what the clouds looked like? Here are some “clouds” to figure out – word clouds formed by about a hundred LinkedIn connections in response to this question: “What 3 words would

We were on a nice port tack, but Raspberry Island was coming up fast; we needed to come about. I coached my nephews – one at the wheel and one at the winches – how to execute the maneuver, so soon we were “hard-a-lee,” turning through the wind to begin our starboard tack. There was on