My grandmother was born in an ethnic neighborhood of Chicago in 1900 and had never seen a live cow growing up. In first grade her class was given cut-out farm animals and told to trace and color them. She had a cow to draw and painted it purple because she liked the color purple. The …

4 Question of Problem-Solving: Coaching Tips Does your mind ever go around in circles or do you lose sleep trying to come up with a solution for a problem? As a coach, I find that my clients benefit by following this four-question problem-solving method. 1. What is the problem? 2. What are the solutions for …

The challenges facing Paul Levy, the embattled CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, highlight the issues faced by many leaders: once in hot water, how to start on the road to recovery. The problem is that many leaders don’t appreciate the nature of the ethics risks they face and what is in fact …

That’s an important distinction. The defining characteristic of a gift is that control over its use passes to the recipient the minute the transfer is made. While some donors may restrict a gift to a general purpose — scholarships for example — decisions over the deployment of the funds within that restriction rest entirely with …

[This supersedes and is a greatly expanded version of a post originally published on May 14.] Retaining someone to provide a service about which you know little yourself can always be tricky, whether it be an auto mechanic, a lawyer, a plumber, a computer tech or — the topic du jour — a media trainer. …

This blog entry is an introduction to transformational leadership theory. The core elements of transformational leaders are that they inspire followers to extraordinary performance and to a shared sense of commitment to a vision for the organization; encourage and challenge followers to be creative and innovative in their efforts to solve organizational problems; and focus on the development of the leadership skills of others through coaching, mentoring, and other forms of support.

In a world with dynamic markets and fickle customers, it’s best to build into your plan strategies to respond quickly to new opportunities and threats. Long gone are the days when you could just create a valuable product, price it to attract customers while making a profit, and then just keep doing the same thing …

here are some definitions I ran across after reading Carter McNamara's blog titled Are You Doing OD? Training? Consulting? Coaching? All of These? enjoy

Why a Policy for Making Decisions? How often have you heard Board members assert that they’d made a decision, when they really hadn’t — all they had done was talk about a topic for a long while? Or, how often have some Board members or the Executive Director asserted that a decision had been made, …

Too Often, What We Call a Program, Really Isn’t If you spent the day guiding old ladies across the street and someone gave you a dollar for doing it, would that mean you’re delivering a “program?” What many people call a program is too often just a sporadic set of disconnected activities — it’s not …