Essays
It’s the World Cup and I couldn’t help myself. Football, the one where you actually hit the ball with your foot, is the only truly global game. Go anywhere in the world. Anywhere. And people are either playing it or talking about it. Dale Carnegie wrote a book
Essays
A Sonata in Three Movements
Essays
What actually happens inside you when you say you’re listening? When I’m waiting for my turn to speak, I’m not listening. When I’m filtering what you’re saying as you’re saying it, I’m not listening. When I’m debating whether I want to agree
Essays
I had cataract surgery on one eye last week. The world has been a matter of contours and shadows rather than resolved edges and precise detail. I couldn’t drive. I have been reading signs at distance, and signs at distance had become impressionist gestures. But for most of what
Essays
Not dumb as in lacking intelligence. Dumb as in aware of your ignorance. Most people treat knowledge as accumulation. You learn things. The pile grows. You become more capable as the pile gets bigger. This is true. It is not sufficient. What the accumulation model misses is the edge. Every
Essays
When the project succeeds, it’s because of the leader’s clear direction. When it failed, the team didn’t execute properly. When retention improves, the leader has created the right culture. When people leave, they weren’t a good fit. When the product shipped on time, the leader kept
Essays
This week I’m setting aside the regular essay to say something simple. A lot of people around you (family members, neighbors, colleagues) are affected by what’s happening in our country at the moment. Many of you are too. I am. If you manage people, you already know this.
Essays
A question for you about Field Notes I'm considering publishing my Field Notes—25 years of ethnographic observations from inside organizations around the world. I wrote these seriously, as organizational anthropology: what you'd document if you stumbled into an unknown tribe and tried to understand behaviors
Essays
I keep seeing versions of the same claim: that trust is the natural result of psychological safety. Or that it can be engineered through a formula. That’s tidy. It’s appealing and it’s convenient. It’s also not true. Psychological safety may create the conditions where trust could
Essays
A McKinsey type had managed to get on someone’s calendar. He had a pitch. I ended up in the room. He was already there when I walked in — standing at the head of the table, laptop open, smile polished. Oxford PPE and the particular self-confidence of someone who
Essays
I keep seeing versions of the same claim: that trust is the natural result of psychological safety. Or that it can be engineered through a formula. That's tidy. It's appealing and it's convenient. It's also not true. Psychological safety may create the
Essays
They celebrate your promotion to manager. You've finally arrived. Except you haven't. You've been amputated. Management isn't promotion; it's transformation through loss. Your expertise was once currency. Your output, tangible. Your control, complete. Each day ended with concrete evidence of