When virtuosos join together in the pursuit of a common goal, miraculous things can happen. Sometimes an exceptional leader can recast the ordinary into the extraordinary, as George Washington did at Valley Forge, but more often marvels occur when leaders have stellar talent to start with. That happened at the Winter Olympics in 1980. TheRead more
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In Landing in the Executive Chair: How to Excel in the Hot Seat, I described “virtuosos” as those people who distinguish themselves and exemplify E5: excellence, expertise, experience, enterprise, and ethics. Of these five, excellence poses the most challenges for understanding it and attaining it. What makes us excellent? First, we must be aware ofRead more
What can leaders learn from a wrestling match with Mother Nature? Today marks the 20th anniversary of the second-largest volcanic eruption of the past century and by far the largest eruption to affect a densely populated area, which occurred at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines on June 15, 1991. The eruption produced high-speed avalanches ofRead more
Most hiring and promotion decisions prove to be neither dramatically good nor dreadfully bad-most lie someplace in the middle. But in my more than thirty years of helping clients with talent decisions, I have discovered three kinds of people who will keep you up at night-your worst nightmares. The smart psychopath. The authors of SnakesRead more
