The word “strategy” too often brings to mind images of uptight executives in boardrooms, with heavy binders and spreadsheets, debating critical choices. Experts will tell you strategy is “a plan of action designed to achieve a major or overall aim.” Strategy is a science, and it’s serious.

This week, I was in Erie, PA, then Chicago, now I’m in Seattle to present two talks. Stepping out of the arrivals area at the Seattle–Tacoma Airport activated a vivid memory of stopping at the seating area there, eight years ago, to conduct a phone interview with Time Magazine. A few weeks later, my photo

I’m angry, not jetlagged. It’s 4:30am and I’m banging on the keyboard from my hotel room desk when I should be asleep, fueling for a keynote I deliver to a thousand electronics executives in four hours. What tossed me out of bed and pulled me to my laptop was not the three-hour time difference between New York

  Wind blowing the sounds of trumpets, laughter, and dinner parties across the Savannah River makes my perch on my hotel balcony feel like it’s at the center of this historic city. Tonight I flew from a workshop for a group of women executives in Miami to Savannah, Ga., where I will keynote for a software company’s

This week I ran three days of workshops for PVH (Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.) and UTC (the huge tech firm that makes everything from Otis elevators to NASA space suits). In the gaps of time I’ve been working on defining the name for my next book, which has led to researching the word “innovation.”

If my family ever reads this blog, please know that I love you dearly and I carefully memorize each cherished moment I spend with you. And yet, this morning, silent in my hotel room outside of suburban Philadelphia, commuters’ headlights floating slowly across wet streets, I feel complete and alone. You see, it’s been a

The Virgin America lounge at LAX, clinks of drinks, CNN humming in the background, and a distant rumble of planes landing and leaving gently marking the end of a stimulating two days facilitating 36 of ABC’s most senior television executives. Heads of news, comedy, daytime, digital, sales, and more, all filling one room with creative

I’m on hour 20 of 24 in my journey home from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While there, I completed the training of five “Certified Outthinker Growth Strategists” in AIG, the world’s largest insurance company. A hundred emails, a proposal, and two document reviews behind me, I finally get to consider what I learned on this most

At a breakfast last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Iris Nafshi, Campbell Soup’s head of learning and development and former head of leadership development for Microsoft, about unlocking intrapreneurship in your organization. One of the things Iris shared is that if I really want to understand intrapreneurship, I should look up Chitra

The Organization of Tomorrow will be … Ten hours into a 16-hour flight. In two days, I’ll be delivering a workshop in Malaysia for a group of mid-market CEOs (the EO Chapter of Malaysia) and for AIG Malaysia. I should be dead tired but I can’t sleep because I am so inspired/angry/committed, having just written