Recent Blog Articles

Leadership Means Embracing Discomfort No One Else Will - Clear and Open

Turn Toward Discomfort, Turn Toward Leadership

Imagine you’re a personal trainer: you help people get in shape. A new client calls you and tells you their problems: they’re tired a lot, their clothes don’t fit, and they don’t feel comfortable going to the beach because of how they look. You tell them you can help, and schedule the first session. The…

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Family Business Problems Have Real Solutions: Get Clear - Clear and Open

From Inundation To Transformation

2016 was a huge year for my client, Brian, and I want to honor his transformation. Brian and his wife, Kim, own a landscaping and snow removal company. They came to me in July of 2014 with a list of serious problems in their family business. They were both working about eighty hours a week.…

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Systems Are Not The Solution: A Clear-Headed You Is! - Clear and Open

Systems Ain’t The Secret

The following isn’t a secret, but might as well be because it’s rarely understood. I was very fortunate to begin my coaching career at EMyth in 2002. The E-Myth Revisited remains to be one of the top best-selling business books of all time (over ten million copies last I heard). I’ve spoken to hundreds, perhaps…

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Effective Coaching Means Talking About How To Receive It - Clear and Open

How To Be Helpable

Have you ever given brilliant advice to someone who couldn’t receive it? Of course you have. I want to tell you about one of my biggest mistakes. I’ll also share with you one of the secrets of getting good help. We all need help, but don’t often realize we can make ourselves more helpable. As…

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Management Without Supervision Solves People Problems - Clear and Open

Don’t Supervise – Meta-Supervise!

Here’s one crazy idea that has the power to change an entire company: no adult should need supervision. I’ll explain. Let’s define supervision this way: Ensuring somebody who already knows what to do, actually does it right. Management on the other hand, we can define as supporting people to grow and learn in ways they…

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Goal Setting Doesn't Usually Work - Here's The Fix - Clear and Open

Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail And What To Do About It

I know. You’re tired of hearing about New Year’s Resolutions. But I promise you something new here. We’re going to turn the whole thing on its head, and that’s always fun. What if everything you’ve been taught about goal setting left out the key ingredient? And that’s why your eyes glaze over when you hear…

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Change Management Isn't About Workarounds - Clear and Open

X Easy Ways To Blah Blah Blah

We love quick-fixes. Unfortunately, for the things that really matter, they rarely work. Think about your expertise. Think about your greatest achievements. Think about a change you’ve made in yourself. Did any of those things happen from implementing “X Easy Ways to Blah Blah Blah” that showed up in your inbox one day? Probably not.…

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Family Business Problems Simply Solved: It's Easier Than You Think! - Clear and Open

How To Make Family Business Problems Disappear

I get asked a lot about family businesses, and I’ve helped hundreds. Family business problems begin with an innocent mistake: the assumption that working with someone you love is easy. The truth is there are few things more difficult. Once you accept that you’ve inadvertently taken on an Olympic-level challenge, things can change. It’s actually…

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Engagement Fix For Employees You'd Never Think Of - Clear and Open

The Employee Engagement-Overwhelm Cycle

Prior to about twenty years ago, you didn’t hear much on the subject of employee engagement. Then a bunch of management consultants discovered it was a billion dollar problem. It’s my hope and prediction that in the next twenty years one of its root causes is recognized as widely. Employee engagement was revealed as a…

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Get Organized, Slow Down To Go Faster: A Counterintuitive Approach - Clear and Open

Slow Is The New Fast

Because metaphors involving sexy cars are always fun…. I’ve ogled the valet lots Newport Beach, CA, where Porsches are pedestrian, but the fanciest car I’ve ever seen was in a Home Depot parking lot in the sleepy town of Phoenix, Oregon. I didn’t know what I was looking at, the only writing on this polished…

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