Stop the Silent Startup Killers

In the medical world, “silent killers” are conditions with no obvious symptoms that progress to an advanced stage before someone discovers them. In organizations and on teams, a lack of psychological safety, unconscious bias, and low trust are “silent killers” that slowly drain away energy, engagement, and the human spirit — often going undetected until the damage becomes irreparable. Ignoring these silent killers is toxic for teams and life-threatening for startups. Leaders who…

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9 September 2019

Leadership

Getting the Right People on your Team Bus

I recently conducted a workshop on building highly-effective teams with a group of service leaders and their team members. During a coffee break, one of the leaders and I were chatting about the challenges of team building, and he asked me a great question, "How do I make sure that I'm hiring the right people for my team?" It seems like that question should have a straightforward answer. In reality, most recruiting, interviewing,…

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26 November 2017

Leadership

Team Leadership Lessons from the Navy SEALs

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu observed that the challenge of leading a small army versus a large army is largely a matter of “dividing up their numbers” and “signs and signals”. In modern terms, this means instilling the structures, communications, and processes that are necessary for scaling an effective small force into a larger one. As fast-growing, team-based startups replicate their small, highly-effective teams into a larger, high-performance organization—or, when larger…

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6 September 2017