Expectations matter. We all have them, and typically we don’t know we have them until they go unmet. Kelly and I learned that lesson by serving within a marriage ministry at our church called Reengage for three years. It’s a funny thing to see couples who have been together for decades still enter into situations with unstated expectations; we certainly still do after over twenty years of marriage. If we have expectations with our life partners even after decades together, it’s not so surprising for us to have expectations within our teams that are often just coming together! 

We are all drowning in information, and that makes it very difficult to pick apart what is truly important vs. what is merely interesting. If a leader’s first job is to see the world as it truly is, then we should be thoughtful about the type, volume, and source of the information that we are consuming. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, the information we absorb will shape the way we see the world, and if we’re not careful, it can lead us astray. 

I’d love to be able to say that I was one of the people who left the Army as a top performer and immediately found myself at the top of my new profession (sales), but I was not. Two years running I watched colleagues collect hardware and hard cash at the National Sales Meeting while sulking in my chocolate cake from the audience.

Discipline is not a superpower. Discipline is being who we say we are, and doing what we say we are going to do. It’s simple, and it’s hard, but discipline is not a superpower.

There’s been an awful lot written about the numerous advantages and disadvantages of remote work. We’ve read a bunch of it, and we suspect you have too. So rather than bore you with our grand unified theory on distributed work, we thought we might start offering some bite-size, useful ideas that you can take and actually apply to your business. To start, we want to talk about the importance of sharing a common “leadership language” and how that might be the best way for you to start truly aligning your team.

Let’s be honest, sometimes it just doesn't work out. 

In our coaching practice we talk to a number of leaders wringing their hands (rightly) about a decision to let a teammate go. Exiting a teammate is hard stuff. But when we’ve had the difficult conversation, tried aligning on a plan, tried the performance improvement plans (PIP), and performance still is not working out, then we must take action.

In the Rangers and the Green Berets, every class cycle conducts something called Peer Evaluations, “Peers,” for short. This process is an opportunity to lift the curtain that the cadre cannot see behind and offer insights into all the candidates' real behaviors—what they do when no one is watching.