How to avoid their mistakes and build a company (and a life) you love. — “I hate this company,” I said to myself, sitting in the office in San Francisco. “I can’t believe I created this.” This is how Darius Mirshahzadeh opens his book, The Core Value Equation. Darius had been successful by any external measure. He was the founder and CEO of a company…

If you want your team to succeed, be ready to fight back. — It’s Wednesday morning, February 19th. As I sip my morning coffee and scroll through my emails, I notice a message from Chris. He’s one of the key people in a Silicon Valley tech startup, Swizzy*. A few months back, I helped Swizzy identify its mission and values. It’s a great…

Counterintuitive advice on how to break dysfunctional patterns and re-write the cultural algorithms that stall your progress. — If you’ve ever tried to build something awesome with a group of people, chances are you’ve also had the following experience at some point: You rush to build your product, go to market, grow further and faster, overcome some seemingly insurmountable challenge. …

In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, one of the key characters, Mike Campbell, is asked: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.” Gradually, then suddenly On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 took off on a sightseeing flight of Antarctica. The whole plane was the first-class…

Gary Hamel, an influential business thinker and co-author of Humanocracy said: “The most profound business challenge we face today is how to build organizations that can change as fast as change itself.” We’ve been told for decades that we live in times of exponential change. But for many of us…

You’ve probably heard it a million times: “Designing and building a strong company culture is fundamental to success. But it’s also super hard.” Sounds about right? Well, it’s not. It’s a blatant lie. Three lies, to be precise, skillfully rolled into one. Lie #1: Culture change is the hardest work you will ever do. Many of the leaders I meet through my…

CEOs share how their companies were able to navigate the pandemic and turn crisis into opportunity. — American novelist, James Lane Allen, said: “Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.” One of the few upsides to the COVID-19 pandemic is that it provides endless opportunities to stress test your company’s character. …

A toxic corporate culture can stall progress and innovation. Three signs to look out for. — Before the cultural transformation of Microsoft, spearheaded by the current CEO, Satya Nadella, employees referred to the company campus in Redmond, Washington as “The Bubble.” In their book, Stack Rank This. A Memoir of a Microsoft Couple, two ex-employees said: “If you are in The Bubble, it just becomes easier…

Last Thursday, I did something for the first time in my life. I welcomed a filming crew at my home, and we shot videos for a 9-episode video series. We also did two video interviews, and one LinkedIn Live — all in one day. While I’m used to interviewing others…