Latest Essays
In praise of human thought partners
Artificial intelligence gurus give good advice when they tell me: Don’t treat AI like a smarter search engine; treat it as a collaborative thought partner. But how good a job am I doing with human [...]
Engaging to see—and to prompt miracles
Every boxer has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, Mike Tyson said. And yet the information in that first, nearly unavoidable punch is invaluable as a guide to a revised plan and [...]
The humble audacity of Intel’s Andy Bryant
As the people of Intel honor and thank Andy Bryant as he retires as the company’s chairman, I suspect many of them are already missing their periodic access to his insights and counsel—about the company [...]
Action Required: Connect 2 colleagues. Who knows what you’ll spark?
This epiphany occurred, like they always do, by accident. Recently I was writing one of those nudge/pitch emails to a longtime colleague I respect and like, gently following up on a previous exchange about possible [...]
Rewriting Mueller—for clarity & impact, and in good faith
We can assume that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was happy with the text of the report released last week—or as happy as one gets with such an undertaking. As a document, it is a clean, [...]
Employee engagement today: The hard work of tough questions
Leaders have always had plenty to worry about, and each era’s leaders tend to feel that “today’s pressing questions” are more pressing than those of times past. Still, there’s good reason to feel compassion for today’s leaders: [...]