Uncategorized Articles - Steve On Leadership

What Resolution? I Forgot Already

My wife Patti and I enjoy the Voice and especially the enthusiasm of one judge, Kelly Clarkson. I recently read Clarkson shared this amusing New Year’s resolution, “To the person that lost weight over the holidays… Don’t worry, I found it and will get it back to you starting January 1st," Clarkson joked. New Year’s Day is what Katy Milkman calls a “landmark date”. Landmark dates help we humans move away from the past and experience the Fresh Start Effect. Yesterday on January 17th when I went to Planet Fitness I saw fewer people – just like last year. Why [...]

By Steve Wood|2022-01-18T18:50:54-05:00January 18th, 2022|Change Leadership, Leadership, Uncategorized|

Need a Few Thankful Laughs?

This week as I am thinking about what and who I am thankful for I am reminded of how really grateful I am for good laughs – something we have always had around our family’s Thanksgiving table over the decades. Since we will not be gathering together this year, I decided to share an article I wrote a few years ago about Thanksgiving humor. Here are 15 humorous items that made me laugh – I hope you find a few to lighten-up your Thanksgiving Day. Last Thanksgiving I shot my own turkey. It was fun. That shotgun going, Blam! Everybody [...]

By Steve Wood|2020-11-24T12:47:32-05:00November 24th, 2020|Uncategorized|

The Funny Success of Zoom

Photo by Gabriel Benois Every day in April 2020 over 300 million of us are using Zoom to communicate with others in our lives. And, when you think about it, almost every day something funny happens on Zoom. I’ll share a few of my favorites in a minute, but, first, let’s look at the history of Zoom. Zoom Founded by Eric Yuan. In 1987 Eric Yuan was a college student in China. He first toyed with the idea for internet video while on 10-hour train rides between college and his home, where his girlfriend lived. Eric Yuan [...]

By Steve Wood|2020-04-24T17:10:26-04:00April 23rd, 2020|Business, Entrepreneurship / Innovation, Uncategorized|

Two Sides of Your Responsibility Coin

We have many roles in our lives and each role brings with it different responsibilities. This week when I was talking with someone about leadership roles I found myself using the two sides of a coin as a metaphor for the discussion. On the “heads” side of the responsibility coin are those leadership responsibilities you have because of your “positional” leadership role. Examples of these types of roles might be as a Team Leader, Manager, Chairperson, or President. With these roles come responsibilities unique to each organization. On the “tails” side of the responsibility coin are those leadership responsibilities that [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-11-07T15:25:23-05:00November 7th, 2019|Credibility & Inspiration, Leadership, Uncategorized|

Is Work-Life Balance Baloney?

I wonder if this young woman we saw working at a museum has a work-life balance – she doesn’t look very happy. More about her in a moment. Let me say this right up front - I have never really understood the work-life balance mantra that we employers are supposed to embrace as we try to recruit Millennials. To me it is like achieving Nirvana, that Buddhist transcendent state of mind when an individual has no suffering, no desires, no sense of self, and you are released from the “effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth.” I [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-09-27T08:36:04-04:00September 26th, 2019|Team Leadership / Teamwork, Teams & Culture, Uncategorized|

Credible Leaders Repel Parasites

It is rather odd how leadership lessons bump into me. Just last week when I was helping with a mussel restoration project at our lake, two leadership lessons converged in my mind. More about those lessons in a moment. Mussel Restoration Project. Our lake, which my family has been on since the late 1800’s, is located in western New Hampshire. By all measures our lake is one of the cleanest in the state. However, in recent years we have noticed a modest reduction in clarity and an increase in algae growth. And, until last week, we had no freshwater mussels. [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-08-16T10:32:17-04:00August 15th, 2019|Leadership, Leadership Lessons, Uncategorized|

Entitled Leaders May Help Homo Sapiens Go Extinct

Photo of Referee Scott Foster by Isaiah J. Downing It has always bothered me how the very leaders who refer to government programs as “entitlements” behave entitled themselves. By entitled I mean they act as if the laws, rules, and ethics they talk about apply to everyone else, not them. And entitled people hate referees, but more about that in a moment. What concerns me today is how our younger generation is being impacted by the increasingly visible entitlement behavior displayed by their parents, politicians, celebrities, wealthy business leaders, and professional athletes. I ask myself, “If we do [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-05-30T12:06:02-04:00May 30th, 2019|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior, Uncategorized|

What Were You Thinking?

Maybe it's just me, but lately I’ve been baffled by some decisions people make. Quite often I say to myself, “What Were You Thinking?” Dogs making bad decisions, like getting a head stuck in a cat door, now that’s understandable. But managers and leaders have something dogs don’t have, the “ability to reason.” At least that’s what I learned in biology class. A few weeks ago I watched Jamie Dimon’s interview on C-SPAN after Joe Leddy recommended it to me. Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and is a great example of a competent leader. Given how most [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-01-24T14:38:36-05:00January 24th, 2019|Leadership Lessons, Uncategorized|

Three Ways You Might Contribute to Road Congestion

It seems like it was just a few years ago that we relied only on our faithful mail carriers to deliver our very few mail order packages. And most of this mail was delivered by two legs on the sidewalk. But two relatively new consumer habits have changed all that and are helping clog our streets – 1) Single product, online purchases from places like Amazon; and 2) The use of Uber and Lyft. And soon a third force is going to really impact traffic - driverless vehicles commonly called autonomous vehicles or AVs. Package Delivery. In the days leading [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-01-15T11:47:00-05:00January 15th, 2019|Just Plain Interesting, Uncategorized|

Five Leadership Gifts from George H.W. Bush

Author Steve Wood on far right Last week many Americans paid their final respects to George H.W. Bush, our 41st President. I had a very high regard for President Bush, as many people here in the seacoast of New Hampshire and Maine did. Thousands of we locals met him, as I did four times including when I played one hole of golf with him a few decades ago. Our daughter, Alie, has fond memories of serving he and Mrs. Bush when working at Foster’s Downeast Clambake, a Maine business owned by our friend Kevin Tacy, who did a [...]

By Steve Wood|2018-12-20T09:03:56-05:00December 13th, 2018|Credibility & Inspiration, Leadership, Uncategorized|