“Our safety is the shared responsibility of everyone on board.” – Preflight safety briefing on Delta Airlines This week, I was in a meeting listening to a report on our safety performance. We’ve had fewer injuries this year: 20% fewer Less than 100 About 1.5 accidents a week The effort we have made to improve our guarding of machinery has borne fruit. Only one “severe” accident resulted from an interaction with a machine. Just one.

A colleague sent me this meme yesterday. It was titled – “Three Simple Rules in Life.” If you don’t ever GO after what you want in life, you will never have it. If you don’t ever ASK, the answer will always be NO. If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place. One of the goals I have for all teammates in our enterprise is that we make a difference.

I reacquainted myself this week with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s thoughts on Flow. He describes flow as the mental state of intense focus you experience when you are completely absorbed in a challenging but doable task. Flow happens when you are totally engaged in an activity you excel at, have unlimited energy for, and makes time pass quickly. Ideally, you should find a work environment that allows you to experience flow. You should also keep flow in mind

Some believe Paul “Bear” Bryant to have been the greatest college football coach of all time. He used to say that members of a winning team needed five things: Tell every member what you expect. Give every member an opportunity to contribute. Let them know how they are doing. Give them guidance when they need it. Express appreciation for performance. This is a good checklist for leaders and followers alike. If your team isn’t winning,

There are a lot of studies on “happiness” these days. In one study, people are emailed and must stop immediately and answer questions about their mental state. The study is developing a database on mindset. One of the areas of study is concentration. Turns out that the more you focus on the task or effort at hand, the happier you are. In other words, if your mind is wandering and you are “going through the

“Define yourself by what you love.” – Tim Minchin Ran across this Australian comedian Tim Minchin giving a commencement address to students at the University of Western Australia. He spoke of nine life lessons which were a bit unconventional, but wise. Here’s the link to the speech:  https://youtu.be/yoEezZD71sc One of the lessons was the quote above: “Define yourself by what you love.” He makes the point in his speech about a tendency we have to

“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye One of the best training experiences I ever had was taking a course from Eugene Emerson Jennings at Michigan State University. In addition to being a professor, Jennings was counsel to the stars. He was a personal coach to many executives who led the massive auto industry in Detroit in the 70s. Jennings regarded business as a complicated maze. He watched to see

Price Pritchett is a veteran leadership consultant. He says eliminating negative thoughts does more good than positive thinking. While he believes that optimism and positivity are great practices, he says studies show that people who mindfully attack their negative thinking clear the paths to further progress. Pritchett says there are Five C’s to negative thinking: Complaining – Pritchett notes that we complain most about things that are out of our control. To eliminate complaints and

“Trust is not granted due to your position.  It is earned due to your behavior.” – Tim Kight If behavior earns trust, it starts by creating relationships. I have a grandson just under two years old. As he is growing, he goes through periods his mother calls “stranger danger.”  In other words, he appropriately keeps his distance from those he doesn’t “know.” I don’t see him all the time so there have been times I’ve

I was listening to an NBA player talking about a coach who was relentless in seeking improvement.  The team was one of the best in the league. “No matter how well we were playing, he’d always be tweaking us. He’d say, “I think we can get a little better at scoring on inbound plays under the basket.” We would focus on it and get better. Then it would be offensive rebounding. Or handling a full-court press.