Recent Blog Articles

Accountability: What We All Want But Won't Ask For - Clear and Open

Accountability: What We All Want But Won’t Ask For

I learned an amazing thing about accountability during my time as an executive at EMyth that is about to transform the way you manage. We interviewed every exiting client to see how we could have improved. We found almost every client wanted to be held more accountable. Their coaches, of course, were shocked. There are…

Read more
Listen Between the Lines About Disengagement - Clear and Open

Listen Between the Lines About Disengagement

I had a realization I wanted to share with you. When I first created Clear Workspace, Open Mind—which is over five hours of video that systematically leads you to become powerfully organized and productive—the purpose was to help people make time to do more important things. I accidentally discovered another function, perhaps its higher service,…

Read more
Money Won't Buy It - Employee Engagement - Clear and Open

Money Won’t Buy It – Employee Engagement

It may be news to you, in the consulting world it’s cliché: money is not at the top of the list for employee motivation. Just Google the term “employees motivated by money” and see the countless studies and articles about the importance of respect, culture, recognition, etc. Are we surprised? The stock language variations of…

Read more
The Cure of Virtue in an Age of Weakness - Clear and Open

The Cure of Virtue in an Age of Weakness

Over the last few weeks at Clear and Open, we discussed employee engagement often. One of the challenges of addressing disengagement in the workplace is the cultural issue. I don’t mean your company culture, although that’s inevitably a factor. I mean the world culture. We live in a disengaged world, and it didn’t use to…

Read more
The Secret is There's No Secret - Lesson in Impatience - Clear and Open

The Secret is There’s No Secret – A Lesson in Impatience

Do you have challenges with impatience? Consider: How’s your ability to focus? Do you feel like you’re on track to your long-term goals? Do you get anxious not checking your phone for a while? These questions all have a common theme, stay with me. It’s easy to see we’ve become an instant-gratification society. Not long…

Read more
Your Boss is Not Your Mother - Leadership Lessons - Clear and Open

Your Boss is Not Your Mother – Leadership Lessons

What if I said there’s something that causes managers and employees needless suffering every day in this world that almost no one talks about? Would you believe me? Can you handle a two-minute psychology lesson? I promise it’s worth it. (And it is one of the most needed leadership lessons.) I’m talking about authority projections.…

Read more
The Devil Wears Prada and Disengagement - Clear and Open

The Devil Wears Prada and Disengagement

How does choice relate to disengagement? Allow me to digress. My favorite scene in The Devil Wears Prada is when Meryl Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly, gives an incisive mini-lecture on the invisible and pervasive power of the fashion industry. Check out the clip, it’s less than two minutes. (Not a spoiler!) This scene brings tears…

Read more
The Opportunity Cliche - Josef Shapiro - Clear and Open

The Opportunity Cliche

I don’t know when the word “opportunity” was first used as a reframe for a difficulty, but it’s easy to see it’s overused and has become even cliché. Like all wisdom trickled down into mass usage, this overuse dilutes the real meaning. It’s like what happens to your love of a hit song that’s so…

Read more
Disengaged Employees - Josef Shapiro - Clear and Open

Disengaged

I had a profound realization about disengaged employees I want to share with you that is critically important for anyone who manages people. I need to give you two minutes of background first. “The world has an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.” This is the first line…

Read more
Embracing Avoidance and Uncovering the Truth - Clear and Open

Embracing Avoidance and Uncovering the Truth

Management is like parenting: many people do it and they mostly have no idea what they’re doing, but they somehow make it work. The result? Stress, wheel-spinning, overwhelm, and millions of dollars in lost opportunity. That’s why I’m launching a special course starting January 11th, 2018. How to Manage and Be Managed is the missing…

Read more