“I truly believe that if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your business.” – Sir Richard Branson If Branson is to be believed, and his track record at The Virgin Group suggests that he knows what he’s doing, we’re left with the question: how do you take care of your…
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I scaled the four-foot dirt bank and followed the trail as it turned sharply left and paralleled the meandering stream that I had just crossed. It was almost noon and I was hungry. I considered every small clearing as a potential spot for lunch, hoping to find a site near the water. The sound of water…
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A work environment like The Office where an obtuse boss unknowingly stifles productivity and routinely kills morale makes for a funny sit-com. That series is one of my all-time favorite television shows. However, when fiction becomes reality, it’s not so funny. I’ve seen work environments every bit as dysfunctional as the Scranton branch of…
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Want to talk about something controversial? Politics? Religion? Healthcare? Mere child’s play compared to the deeply entrenched beliefs about the effectiveness of the Scrum or Agile practices in software development shops. OK, maybe that’s a bit of a hyperbole, but the senior leadership that I’ve consulted with over the years tend to have impenetrable convictions about…
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It took all of the will power I could muster to get off the fallen log beside the trail and hoist my pack onto my shoulders. It wasn’t even lunchtime and I was beyond tired. I was weary. The overcast skies were not helping matters. They seemed to mirror my gloomy attitude. For the past five days,…
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My headlamp shown dimly in the dark moonless night. The trees cast long shadows that faded into the blackness of the dense underbrush. Occasionally I could see a highly reflective strap from another camper’s backpack as I surveyed my surroundings, searching for a place to bed down for the night. It was midnight and my hiking…
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On the far bank, a hiking friend from Georgia that I had recently met called out “Joe! You have to try this.” The blissful look of peace on his face affirmed his invitation. The stream was 8 feet across and 10 inches at its deepest point. Someone had thoughtfully placed stepping-stones in the water to allow…
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Do. That’s all the message said. A single two-letter word, a command really, scrawled in the loose dirt on the trail. An arrow primitively drawn beside the word directed my attention toward a sparsely wooded and vine carpeted underbrush bisected by a narrow path. Tendrils encroached onto the trail, obscuring much of the footpath and dissuading potential…
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Have you seen the hashtag #TODOZERO? I didn’t think so. It’s as elusive as Nessie, unicorns, and movies with protagonists played by Ray Liotta. It just doesn’t happen. There’s always something left undone at the end of the day, more work that could be done, more work that should be done. At some point, you have…
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Tray Mountain stood before me, its massive presence reaching toward the heavenly expanse and eclipsing the final efforts of the sun. Sitting on a log beside the trail, I took off my pack and reached for my water bottle. I estimated that I had an hour before the final remnants of the day gave way to darkness.…
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