Applying the lessons I learned from Dan Heath’s Upstream to my health, wealth and wisdom — One of the tools I use as a project manager is a pre-mortem. It’s where we gather the project team and key stakeholders together and discuss the following scenario: we’re close to the end of the project and it has woefully not achieved all of the benefits and success we…

It only takes 5 minutes — First, a story from The Big Moo: Reggie fixes bikes in Mt. Kisco, New York. For every bike he fixes, he does his best (he charges by the hour). Then, he spends five extra minutes doing something special with every bike he fixes. For the first hour, Reggie is detail-oriented…

What I learned from Little Max about being bold, making mistakes and uncertainty — In The Big Moo, there’s a story about a US company that hired several Russian immigrants. To make the transition easier, the CEO and his wife would invite the Russian families over to their house to celebrate various holidays during the year. Gregory was one such employee and he came…

The idea of positive constraints has helped me see things differently — I first learned about the idea of positive constraints through Tim Ferriss. Several years ago, he had gotten a dog named Molly. He talked about some of the challenges (and opportunities) of having a dog while doing what he does (travelling, speaking, podcasting). He said that having Molly was great…

True? Useful? Kind? — Conversations can be challenging. They can be about important issues and it is hard not to let emotions come into the picture. You might exchange some heated words. You might say things you regret later. You might even come away from the conversation having not said anything at all. How…

My favourite quotes from Simon Sinek about leadership, fulfillment and purpose — Together is Better by Simon Sinek is a nice contrast to other business books. It teaches through short quotes and pictures about the journey that comes from leadership. With many fascinating quotes, it’s a call to all of us to become leaders. Most of us live our lives by accident…

Lessons from Dan Heath’s book Upstream and the three barriers to overcome to do more upstream thinking — Dan Heath’s book Upstream presents an interesting premise: How do we prevent problems upstream so they don’t occur downstream? Consider the following example to clarify what I mean when I say upstream vs. downstream: You get invited to a wedding so you dust off your fancy clothes and try it…

Bees and their waggle dance and what it means for you — When honeybees find food, water or new nest sources, they need to communicate this information back to other colony members. Unlike humans, bees can’t talk, so they perform a waggle dance which communicates information to other bees. The duration and direction of the waggle dance communicate the direction and distance. Not all bees follow the waggle dance

A great way to consider whether you need a new job — I was surprised by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman’s findings in their groundbreaking book First, Break all the Rules. Although countless work has been done to understand employee engagement, they found that there were 12 questions, which, if employees responded positively to, signalled engagement at work. Do I know what is expected of me at work?