Leadership
By: Sheri Nasim, President & CEO
This summer, I’ve had the privilege of working with teams from Ivy League Schools to government contractors to startups spawned from UC Berkeley labs. I’ve partnered with a 31-year old CEO/Founder to discuss how to build a leadership team, I’ve facilitated training for high-potential employees and senior leaders interested in mentorship, and I’ve worked with teams to refresh their 3-5 year strategic plans.
Regardless of what I’m asked to help with, leaders from organizations of all types and sizes are searching for answers to improving communication, getting better traction through aligned goals, and managing change. Throughout these meetings, there are usually one or two “a-ha” statements that serve as a catalyst for moving from what is to what is possible. Here are ten such quotes that have resonated with my clients, that may inspire you as well:
- If you have 100% of the information needed to make a decision, you’re not actually making a decision. You’re just stating a foregone conclusion.
- Your power as a leader does not lie in having all of the answers. Your power lies in your ability to ask the right questions.
- The need to change is not an indictment of your past performance but a recognition that you are farther than you have ever been but not yet where you want to go.
- Strategy without execution is meaningless; execution without engaged people is impossible.
- One of the hardest lessons we learn as change agents is that we have to change ourselves first.
- A change in a belief occurs before a meaningful change in behavior.
- Uncertainty and possibility are two sides of the same coin.
- People are down on what they’re not up on. Communication matters.
- Strategic goals are not aspirational. They’re about having the discipline to make good tradeoffs about what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.
- Surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.
I hope you find a statement or two from this list that resonates with you. Write it down. Share it with your people. The lessons learned through others can be extremely impactful on your journey.
Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-third issue of CEE News! .
This summer, I’ve had the privilege of working with teams from Ivy League Schools to government contractors to startups spawned from UC Berkeley labs. I’ve partnered with a 31-year old CEO/Founder to discuss how to build a leadership team, I’ve facilitated training for high-potential employees and senior leaders interested in mentorship, and I’ve worked with teams to refresh their 3-5 year strategic plans.
Regardless of what I’m asked to help with, leaders from organizations of all types and sizes are searching for answers to improving communication, getting better traction through aligned goals, and managing change. Throughout these meetings, there are usually one or two “a-ha” statements that serve as a catalyst for moving from what is to what is possible. Here are ten such quotes that have resonated with my clients, that may inspire you as well:
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Sticky Solutions
Sticky solutions to your everyday business challenges
Question: Our company moved to fully remote earlier this year. Most of my employees are happy about this arrangement, but many of them are starting to push back against the mandate of having webcams on. They’re complaining of Zoom fatigue and the feeling of being micro-managed. Can you share some advice on how organizations are adapting to the camera requirement for remote meetings?
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
While many companies have struggled with their return-to-office plans since the pandemic, Textio, an augmented writing platform led by CEO Kieran Snyder, leveraged the opportunity to go fully remote. That decision has paid off in higher productivity, greater diversity, and Best Company to Work for recognition by Seattle Business Magazine.
Snyder, a self-described recovering academic with a PhD in Linguistics and Cognitive Science from Penn, admitted that she was nervous about making the shift to fully remote. But, in the first year productivity was actually better than it had ever been before.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-second issue of CEE News! .
In the wake of last week’s deadliest school mass shooting in Texas’ history, which happened nine days after one person was killed and five were wounded while attending church in Laguna Hills, CA, one day after ten people were gunned down as a Buffalo supermarket, you may have missed that last week marked the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
The last days of May, when the calendar signals the promise of long summer days ahead, will now also be marked as a season of violence, tears, and mourning in America. Fifteen years after the massacre at Virginia Tech, 10 years after the Sandy Hook rampage, four years after the carnage in Parkland, we have yet to see serious bipartisan efforts at gun reform.
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