Nobody warned me about this when I started leading teams. The higher you climb, the worse your information gets. Not because people lie to you. Because they curate for you. Bad news gets softened. Concerns get swallowed. What your team actually thinks gets translated into something safer by the time it reaches your ear. Welcome to the bad
“The lesser evil is still evil.” – Hannah ArendtIn 1952, Miller and Murray put rats in harnesses and measured pull strength. The rats pulled harder to escape a learned fear than they pulled toward food. Fear outpulled desire. Seventy years of replication later, the gradient still holds. Humans aren’t rats. But the biology isn’t optional – avoidance is
Most soft skills training has a sequencing problem. You take an active listening module. Then a feedback module. Then something on conflict resolution. Each one is packaged neatly, assessed cleanly, and checked off a list. Then you walk into a real conversation and the wheels come off. Not because you didn’t learn the material – but because real
From the newsfeed:”The proliferation of AI has led to a growing “faux-expert” crisis, allowing those with little actual leadership skills to gain influence through AI-generated insights and polished narratives” (John Winsor, the founder and chairman of Open Assembly)Yep, now we are competing with AI-infused personas. Predictable and unfortunate but hardly a crisis. Here’s the deal: Every one
… And Other Things the Gurus Won’t Tell YouTerms that rub a raw spot:”Irregardless””Outside the box”Labels (Millennial, Gen Z, Gen X, etc.)and the newest entry:”Clarity”Yes, I know, I use it, too. But good grief, it is everywhere. I now see this as a growing issue because it is used as an end state that, frankly,
How Collaboration Bias Is Quietly Killing Your Team’s Best DecisionsThe meeting was supposed to produce a decision. I was brought in to facilitate.One camp wanted harmony. One camp wanted answers. Everyone else just wanted to move on.A senior leader finally broke the silence: “Whatever the group thinks.”That should’ve been a red flag. Instead, it was
More than 2 decades ago, one of my fave mentors suggested I start using Evernote as my “second brain”. Initially, I used the basic features but when I started pondering all of the more advanced features, I scaled back my usage instead. A year or so later, I returned to Evernote and embraced many of the advanced
A field guide for CEOs who actually sign the checks You’re being sold AI like it’s oxygen. Every vendor, every consultant, every LinkedIn thought leader swears you’ll be obsolete by Tuesday if you don’t deploy their magical models immediately. Meanwhile, MIT just confirmed what you already suspected: 95% of enterprise AI pilots deliver exactly zero measurable business
Andrew Chen recently published a piece on unconventional business metrics that caught my attention. Among his examples – “Lies per Second” and “PowerPoints per Launch” -one metric stood out as particularly relevant to enterprise leaders: the Meetings per Decision Ratio. Chen describes the problem perfectly: “Why does it take so many meetings to make a decision?
Every founder eventually reaches the same quiet realization: “I’m working harder than ever, and the company is still resisting me.” This is not a motivation problem. It is a scaling problem. As we move into 2026, founders are facing compressed timelines, heavier cognitive load, and fewer margins for error. The question is no longer whether help is useful.