Posts filed as “Coaching”
Only Do What Only You Can Do
Your focus needs more focus – Mr. Han Part of what makes us feel valuable, important and useful is getting things done. We fill the quiet spaces with activity and busyness, and it makes us feel like we’re getting things accomplished. And maybe we are, and maybe sometimes we’re just running the same gerbil wheel…
Two surprising motivators
Over five years ago my cycling partner and friend Erich contacted me and suggested we should ride in the three-day, 180 mile Trek Across Maine. It seemed like a reasonable and fun challenge, and all for a good cause to fight lung cancer. I was in. Then he added, “We’re taking the boys.” He had…
Dealing with Innovation Blockers
Ever get excited about an idea and have it demolished, shot down, blown up, ridiculed, or just ignored? Here are a few of the innovation blocker personas you might find in your workplace, and a few ideas to get around, jump over, or jedi mind-trick them. The Bureaucrat builds consistency, and sets limits to ensure rule…
Finding the Guru Within
“While we teach, we learn” – Seneca One of the greatest gifts you can offer another is unconditional, open sharing of ideas and wisdom to grow their ideas and talents. Everyone benefits, not only obviously the person receiving advice and direction from a trusted mentor, but also the coach himself benefits greatly from the experience….
The #1 Motivator in the World
I know. That title is a big call. Not to worry, we have Teresa Amabile, author of The Progress Principle, to back us up. I was fascinated and enthralled by her work and book when it came out early in the fall 0f 2011, and just one week before meeting her to collaborate on an…
Drop Anchors Carefully
A few years ago at a Sioux Falls, ID supermarket, the owners experimented with marketing labels next to cans of soup. Some days the label said “10% off regular price, limit 10 per customer,” and on other days it said “10% off regular price, no limit per customer.” Shoppers purchased twice as many on the…
Make it Human, Connect with the Impact
There’s a small trick, a small shift in thinking, in mindset, that can translate to immense performance gains. It’s this: connect personally with the impact, the change or result of what you do. Let me give you an example. Adam Grant is a talented young professor at the Wharton School and he conducted a study…
Praise Effort and Grit, Not Talent
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – Stephen King, Author Carol Dweck led a fascinating study back in 1998 in which she and her colleagues worked with four hundred 5th graders and gave them a series of tests, mostly puzzles,…
When you Systematize, You Sterilize
“To systematize is to sterilize.” – Shlomo Maital Lionel Messi plays soccer with the joy of a child. His inventiveness and wizardry can leave you (his opponents too) gaping in awe. In an interview for the New York Times with Jere Longman, Messi stated that he would quit the game as soon as it stopped…
Do it Like Zorro – Control Your Circle
Wall Street today was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday. Little groups gathered here and there to discuss the fall in prices in hushed and awed tones. – New York Times, Oct 30, 1929 You might expect that at that moment in 1929, and…
About Shawn
Shawn Hunter is currently Executive Producer & Vice President for Skillsoft's leadership video learning collections. For over a decade Shawn has engaged, collaborated with, and filmed, hundreds of business authors, executives, and business school faculty in an effort to produce video learning solutions, as both an entrepreneur and later as a product developer for Skillsoft.
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