Boss hints voluntary participation is mandatory.

Karl Edwards

Where do you look to find the best ideas?

Not merely good ideas. But the very best ideas.

Ideas for improvement. Ideas for new products. Ideas for organizing differently. Ideas for fixing problems.

Do you gather the senior management? Do you hire expert consultants? Do you read and research extensively?

What if, on your way into the office this morning, you walked past a treasure trove of the best ideas you could ever hope to find?

What if the knowledge, experience, and creativity to generate the very best ideas were already working at your firm?

Some of you already know where I’m heading with this.

How many of us, when searching for the best ideas imaginable, look confidently and expectantly to those below us on the organizational chart?

Some leaders experience any superior expertise on their staff teams negatively. They believe, mistakenly, that in order to justify their leadership position they (more…)

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

Robert Frost

The great thing about Monday morning is that we get to begin our week any way we choose.

We can choose our attitudes, we can choose our priorities, we can choose what will get our attention and what we will avoid.

Problems, more often than not, fall into the category of what we choose to avoid.

I‘d like to suggest that for this Monday morning, we each select a problem we will address.

Very few of us love problems or look forward to confronting them. Problems, though, exist no matter what we might feel about them.

The opportunity we have here on Monday morning is to begin the week differently.

What is one difficult issue, recurring problem, or awkward relationship that you have been avoiding?

Have been avoiding up until now, that is.

While addressing a problem may be an unpleasant, awkward, and difficult experience, at least you got it over with. You are now on the road to building a different way forward.

As long as the problem is avoided, though, it is still hanging over your head, lurking in the shadows, laying like an unexploded land mine upon which you or someone else will eventually step.

It’s your choice, of course. Would you rather do the difficult work of diffusing the bomb or the difficult work of recovering from its explosion?

This Monday, let’s try diffusing one difficult issue so we can spend the rest of the week building a constructive way forward.

What issue will you choose?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

Innovator battles attorney defining acceptable risk.

Karl Edwards

Problems by definition are messy, complex affairs not lending themselves to simple solutions.

Time has gone by. Unhealthy patterns have developed. Perceptions have hardened. Inefficient practices have become policy. Power struggles have morphed into a hierarchical bureaucracy.

The process of problem solving… that is, the unraveling, the sorting out, the rethinking, the insightful critiques, the fresh alternatives, and the bold decisions needed can neither be delayed nor rushed.

One thing, though, is simple. Where to start. While there is no telling where the process will end up, we know right away where to begin. (more…)

Summer Monday. It’s vacation season. 

Extra coordination for you. People taking off for weeks at a time. Others taking a day here and a day there.

Distracted minds on the floor. Dreaming of upcoming excursions. Making plans. Working out the practical details.

Vacation season is to be expected. However complicated or frustrating in its details, it returns every year sure as the sunrise.

Some supervisors resist and fight vacation season. They experience vacation requests as rude and annoying interruptions in an otherwise smooth running schedule.

As a result they routinely deny vacation requests. The impose onerous preparation prerequisites for being away to avoid any impact on the rest of the team.

Other supervisors celebrate vacation season. Their staff are about to get some much-needed rest and renewal. The outcome of which will be new energy, reengaged spirits and enhanced motivation.

One group of employees returns refreshed and engaged. The other group returns bitter and self-protective.

As complicated and frustrating as coordinating these summer months of vacation season may be, those leaders who welcome and accommodate the season will get to the other side in much better shape than those who resist and fight it.

Summer Monday. Who’s missing on your team?

Try celebrating their vacation instead of resenting it. You’ll be better off, they’ll be better off, and I promise you the bottom line will be better off too.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

“True contentment… is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous, and it is rare.”

G. K. Chesterton

Inspiration? See policy manual, page 627.

Karl Edwards

Aspirations are fuel to the soul.

Aspirations reframe our current circumstances into terms that tap into our dreams and hopes for the future.

Aspirations, though, have to touch ground somewhere.

That somewhere is Monday morning.

That somewhere is in the choices I make today.

Aspirations may be fulfilled in the future, but they always require engagement in the present.

My point in this post is just this: The future cannot be postponed.

All futures, if they are ever to take form, involve taking action today. Action postponed is future postponed.

When it comes to our aspirations, though, we are dealing with matters of the spirit and heart. We are dealing with deep desires and ambitious hopes.

We are dealing with all that makes us come alive and willing to work day after day and year after year in order to realize.

Hence the urgency to live some portion of that dream today. To choose to take one step—however small or however far away from the goal it may feel—today.

Maybe it’s a telephone call to make. Maybe it’s a essay to write. Maybe it’s a skill to learn. Maybe it’s a character trait to adjust. Maybe it’s a desktop to clear. Maybe it’s a problem to confront. Maybe it’s a mistake to correct. Maybe it’s a helping hand to extend.

Just as long as it happens today. Something, one thing, anything, today.

The future cannot be postponed. It will be here before you know it.

What about your aspirations? Let’s make sure by taking a practical step today.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.