Can The Arts Improve Business Performance?

Did you know that students who study art outperform students who don’t on the SAT? Or, that Nobel Laureates are 22 times more likely to be performing artists? Did you know that 400 CEO’s of major U.S. corporations rank creativity, collaboration and communication among the most critical skills for success in the 21st century? New…

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Rethinking The Way We See

Last Friday, my associate, Mare Rosenbaum and I had the opportunity to participate in Amy Herman’s terrific session on Visual Intelligence with a group of FBI Intelligence Analysts in Washington, DC. Among other things, the program, titled Rethinking How We See, uses the visual arts to train agents how to sharpen our perception and look…

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Mentors and Coaches: Doing and Being

Some of the most important trusted advisers, mentors and coaches in my life have never worked in my industry. They’ve never practiced in the fine arts, or managed a sales organization or published a newspaper. They’ve never run a coaching or consulting group either. Yet, they seem to show up at precisely the right time…

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Relax…It’s okay to be a little scared.

  Whether we’re able to admit it or not, we’re all a little scared. Those who aren’t are either living a safe, comfortable, somewhat insular life, or are deluding themselves a bit. But for the vast majority of people who actively engage with the world and stretch into new experiences, life tends to bring out…

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You’ve Just Returned From a Terrific Leadership Retreat….Now What?

Offsite meeting and leadership retreats, when they’re facilitated well, can be amazing. New energy, new ideas, deeper connections and clearer understanding are just some of the outcomes of successful retreats. But far too often, post-retreat implementation lags and is eventually replaced by new priorities and new focus, causing a gradual dissipation of energy, and a…

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Break With the Past to Create an Impossible Future

In my (seemingly) endless quest to discover new paths that point toward the future of leadership, I recently found myself pulsing friends and colleagues on critical leadership moments that influenced them the most. One friend stated that although most of his critical leadership lessons came directly from his father, he also learned invaluable lessons from those…

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Developing a Coaching Culture

According to recent data from The Conference Board, presented by Amy Abel, Ph.D., here are some of the strategies companies are using to embed coaching into their talent management framework: 58%    Make concerted efforts to integrate coaching behaviors within various talent management processes 50%    Develop leaders and managers at all levels to be coaches…

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FIVE Keys to Building a Solid Professional Development Strategy

Summer is here. And, while some of us are thinking about the beach, many executives are thinking about the other ‘b’ word….budgeting. With budgeting in mind, here are a few thoughts on the subject of outsourcing, a strategy that companies use to create efficiencies without compromising the system’s integrity, or diminishing important core competencies. Tax…

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