The Adaptive Agency

Business wisdom said, “The customer comes first.” Terrible idea. Unless you’re a solopreneur, your customers are dealing with your employees. If your employees don’t feel valued, customers won’t have a good experience. So the wisdom evolved: “We...

I recently relaunched biweekly 1:1 meetings with my direct reports. None of these items are on the agenda: collecting status updates evaluating project progress assigning deliverables recording takeaways assigning action items In fact, the agenda...

Virtually everyone is familiar with the nativity scene this time of year. We see it outside churches, in movies, on postcards, and at friends’ houses. And whether or not we’re religious per se, or Christian specifically, we get that it’s the...

Author’s Note: Today’s episode is pulled from a guest lecture I recently gave to graduate students at the Korean National Defense University. Are you that rare manager who’s pursuing greater leadership ability? If so, these 3 leadership principles...

1. Labor is a cost; talent is an asset. You grow by leveraging assets, not by minimizing costs. 2. Don’t use people to do work; use work to develop people. 3. The most valuable things aren't managed--they're cultivated. 4. You don’t have employees...

My employees consistently exceed my expectations. How much would you love to be able to say that? But it’s true, and it’s not a coincidence. They do it because they’re confident. Here are five things I do to contribute to high confidence in my...