Last Friday, a full room of guests battled through an April wintry blast of snow and ice to attend the Good Leadership Breakfast. We learned about how goodness pays through the experiences of our guest speaker Monte Nuckols, an international IT executive with Adient. Monte recalled the compassion and encouragement of a specific leader when I asked him the most important question:
It's been 5 months since Paul Hillen and I launched the How Goodness Pays book. It wasn't easy in any way, shape, or form. It took two years to get the funding, and three years to research and write a credible book. And since the book launch he and I have been traveling east and west talking about the joys and tribulations of tackling the subject of "goodness" in "business." Here's how my journey started, as written in Chapter 1:
Our coaches delight in working with technical leaders who learn to master the soft stuff. What's a technical leader? Lawyers, accountants, technologists - anyone who is highly-trained in the scientific method whose natural orientation is to identify problems. What does it mean to master the soft stuff?
In our new book, How Goodness Pays, my co-author Paul Hillen describes how his leadership style was once dubbed “a bag of hammers.” What’s your own “bag of hammers” – that is, a blind-spot leadership trait holding you back from success? Paul Hillen tackles today’s blog…
Poised, happy, articulate, and magnetic - that's how I'd characterize the presence of Megan Remark who spoke at the Good Leadership Breakfast last Friday. She's the CEO of Regions Hospital in St. Paul, MN, and also one of the senior executives at HealthPartners. Under her leadership, Regions hospital has risen to be included in the Top 50 Hospitals in America two years in a row. Guests who persevered through a Bold North snowstorm to get to the breakfast, were treated to a full menu of nuggets from listening to Megan speak. Here are five that I'm savoring still today:
The world premiere of the How Goodness Pays book was this past January. Paul Hillen and I shared the stage at a prestigious event called Pancakes at Providence. We hired Twin Cities Public Television to capture the event on video, and produce stimulating segments. You can watch the 3-minute sample video...
Next Friday, March 15, Megan Remark, CEO of Regions Hospital, is the speaker at the Good Leadership Breakfast Series. She's a coaching client of our firm, someone who role models a well-blended life on The Seven Fs: faith, family, finances, fitness, friends, fun, and future. As one of the top leaders within the HealthPartners organization, she has a unique viewpoint on how care is being delivered in times of trauma, and also how our expectations as consumers are changing for our primary care. I interviewed Megan on a Friday afternoon, just before she and her daughter were headed...
New leaders are seldom hired to protect the status quo: to preserve the existing state. Incremental progress: small, methodical change isn't very attractive either. Because the pace of change is rapidly accelerating, leaders today are most often asked to think in transformational ways: profound (sometimes radical) change that sends an organization in a whole new direction. Within the past five business days, our team has been working with two relatively new leaders who are creating transformational change in their world.
Between last Friday's Good Leadership Breakfast kick-off, and Sunday's Lakeside Gathering at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church, I'm asking myself the powerful question: "How do I know who I am?" That question was central to the performances of two powerful, insightful African American men who are now a part of my life. Stedman Graham was the speaker at the breakfast, and T. Mychael Rambo, was the speaker at the church gathering. Here's what I'm thinking today:
Overnight, the Minnesota temperature dropped to a windchill of 21 below zero Fahrenheit. So we had to change our plans. What surprised me most is half of the hospital executive team, who was attending the annual leadership alignment retreat, still wanted to walk a mile around the resort's lake - in the frigid cold. That's the magnetic power of including a break for "fitness" into leadership team retreats. Over the past 9 years, clients have told us the most valuable service we provide is...