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Ask Questions

Do you remember growing up? You always had questions. Rarely did you have answers.

The older you got, the fewer questions you had. The more answers you seemed to find.

That might be true. The longer we’re alive, the more we learn and know. Sometimes the questions dry up.

A child on a Dell laptop stopping to ask a question

Photo by Rohit Farmer on Unsplash

But…

Trouble arises when we begin to lose the desire to ask questions. Questions are a key to learning and growing.

And leaders are always looking to grow.

Today, I want to encourage you to ask questions. They can be silly questions, serious questions, or questions you just want to know the answer to.

Ask Questions

As children, we asked questions because we wanted to know the answer. We knew the more questions we asked, the more we’d learn.  Read more...

  • Why is the grass green?
  • How did we come to be?
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Time to Get Out of Dodge? What to Do When You’re Done with Your Business

This is a contributed post to JMLalonde.com. For more information on contributing a post, please see our contributing policies.

All good things must come to an end. And sometimes things that aren’t going well have to come to an end too. Running a business is a lot of hard work. Sometimes you can find success and sometimes you aren’t so lucky. But whatever happens, you may one day want to exit your business. Some people choose to write an exit plan so that they know exactly when and how they want to move on. Others don’t plan so far ahead and just wait to see what happens so they can make a decision in the future. If you’ve decided it’s time to move on, you need to consider what’s next.  Read more...

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Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank

A Reel Leadership Article

My latest book, Reel Leadership, is now available on Amazon. If you love movies and leadership, you will love this book.

Kids and adults alike will love the new animated movie Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank. If you remember the classic 1974 movie Blazing Saddles, you’ll find similarities between the two movies.

Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank is loosely based on that classic Mel Brooks film. It’s a cuddlier, cuter version that even pays tribute to the film with a Blazing Samarai text overlay during the movie.

What is Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank? A town (Kakamucho) full of cats finds itself in need of a hero. Their previous samurai had skedaddled at the first sign of trouble.

Hank and Jimbo from Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank

The evil ruler Ika Chu (Ricky Gervais) had sent one of his generals, Ohga (George Takei), to wipe out the town. Why? Because the town was an eye-sore and Ika Chu wanted a beautiful view for the visiting Shogun (Mel Brooks).  Read more...

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Stop Training Your Employees To Not Try

When employees step out of their comfort zone and try something new, magical things happen. Google allows its employees to spend 20% of their time working on pet projects. These pet projects are things the employee sees that could benefit Google.

Most organizations are not like Google. They are unwilling to give their employees time to try new things, even when the organization would benefit.

Monkey with a shocked expression on its face

Photo by Jamie Haughton on Unsplash

Worse, organizations often punish their employees for trying something new and failing. And the employees don’t understand why they can’t attempt something new.

This makes me think about the monkey experiment Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad wrote about in one of their books. The authors tell the story of four monkeys placed into a room. In the room is a pole with bananas at the top. A monkey begins to climb the pole so he can enjoy the banana. Reaching out for the tasty meal, the monkey is doused with cold water. The monkey screeches and retreats. The remaining monkeys each attempt a banana retrieval. Each receives the cold shower. They all give up.  Read more...

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5 Tips to Become an Expert in Your Field

This is a contributed post to JMLalonde.com. For more information on contributing a post, please see our contributing policies.

If you want to be a respected leader, it helps if you are regarded as an expert in your field; someone who really knows what they are doing. When you are an expert, you gain respect, and when you are respected it is much easier to get people to follow you.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what you can do to become an expert in your field and be the leader you know you can be:

  1. Practice, practice, practice

According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in pretty much anything you can think of. Whether this figure is accurate or not, it is true that the more you do something, the better you get at it. So, if you want to be an expert in your field, you need to put the work in and practice, practice, practice.   Read more...