You’re invited to an event on fashion and leadership I’m helping organize next month in New York City. My friends and incredibly dynamic speakers Coco and Breezy will be panelists. You’ll be glad you attended. From the registration page: Connecting the dots Today, the fashion world is more global than ever before. Opportunities and competition exist in abundance as geographic and cultural boundaries have disappeared. Yet, it sometimes seems harder[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is a take on today’s post,”Can I Hide My Beliefs During Jury Selection?” I live in a Midwestern state that has the death penalty. I am scheduled to be a juror for the first time in March, and I’m afraid I will[…] Keep reading →

I’ve worked with people in the upper echelons of business, academia, government, coaching, community organizing, and more. Of them all, I consider Chris Lehmann the most effective and accomplished leader. He happens to be a long time friend and former teammate I competed at Nationals with in the 90s, but that’s not why I consider him so effective and accomplished. He is the founding Principal of the Science Leadership Academy[…] Keep reading →

I found a problem last year teaching entrepreneurship at NYU. Most students I worked with were born outside the U.S. and many wanted to become entrepreneurs. As much as they wanted to start businesses, many of our conversations had this phrase in them: … but I have to get a job with a big company to sponsor my visa. Following on the last year’s successful Women in Entrepreneurship panel, I[…] Keep reading →

“My manager sucks. How do I get them to manage me better?” People ask me this question all the time. The words differ for each person but the concept is the same. Probably every client I’ve coached, no matter what issue they started with, also wanted to work on improving their situation with their manager. Having coached enough on it, I’m putting the main concepts here. If I see demand[…] Keep reading →

If you want to motivate someone, using logic to convince them of what to do often seems like it should work. It rarely does. If the person is already inclined to follow, you don’t need it. If they aren’t you’ll just as likely provoke them to argue back as to follow. Here’s a story to illustrate. Context: In college sports (ultimate frisbee), at weekend tournaments we’d play three or four[…] Keep reading →

The more I spend time out of school, the more I find value in non-academic things I learned. The more I see people who just work hard—by “just work hard” I mean working hard for other people for a pay check without choosing the job—the more they don’t seem to create greatness or deep satisfaction with their lives. The more I see the great people our society admires don’t seem[…] Keep reading →