Monday Morning Mojo

Teachers often talk about the teachable moment: an unplanned opportunity when a student is   particularly open and responsive to a new idea. Thanks to the immediacy and ubiquity of social media, organizations can take advantage of the reachable moment: an unplanned opportunity to use an event to raise awareness by tapping into grassroots support.  When […]

Last night my family and I were driving back from Annapolis where one of my best friends married his lifelong partner in a very informal yet beautiful ceremony in their home.  The ritual itself was less than 10 minutes long, officiated by a good friend. I was surprised that they made a point of recognizing

Over the last four months I upped my game at the gym, going 5-6x week. In other words, I have made a daily committment. It’s amazing how it has changed my experience of life. My body feels different, my energy is up and my mood gets a daily dose of upbeat hormones. Recently spent a

Those of you who know me well know that I am not a sports guy. I don’t follow any one sport well enough to talk intelligently about who’s ahead and who’s behind, or a particular team’s recent victories and defeats. Nonetheless, sports has a lot of great analogies and those who do care deeply about

Well, this is a Monday Evening Mojo… I am sitting with a client having dinner. We are taking a break from the workshop I designed to create an organizational growth strategy. Everyone is eating around us. Among the clinking silverware, a CEO who runs a national and prestigious organization is telling us a quirky story

If you read this regularly, you know my wife, Laura Baron, is an award-winning singer-songwriter. Last year she won 3 Washington Area Music Awards, including Song of the Year for, A Little Note. The song tells the story of a woman who leaves an abusive relationship to set out on her own and take back

My next book will be a handbook on Grand Challenges for leaders of all stripes. A Grand Challenge is a bold, socially beneficial goal that successfully addresses a systemic and embedded problem through collaboration and joint leadership. It generates new stakeholders and powerful resources for any organization—knowledge, work, support, enthusiasm, time, and money. Grand Challenges

Last Monday I flew to Silicon Valley where I spent 3 days with my good friend, Robbie Baxter. Robbie is a membership guru – she wrote The Membership Economy, which has been the #1 Amazon bestseller in 6 different categories! Robbie introduced me to a number of super smart colleagues in a great variety of

In the fall of 1990 I first met Furman Riley during a men’s retreat. I knew right away he was a wild, creative man: an artist.  I never dreamed he would become my best friend.  Furman was 58 and I was 30. The last 25 years have taken us on a journey that ended up

Last week I shared about my most recent father/son trip with Gabe. Here’s the map of where we went. We started in Seattle, headed over to the Cascades before doubling back to the northwest most corner, then driving through seashores, forests and mountains all the way to San Francisco. One of the great things about