PracticeToLead (www.senzostack.com company)

  Context: I'm a Celtics fan, and I've been one for a long time. After watching Jason Tatum in college, I prayed that the Celtics would draft him. And they did. But even now, Tatum remains the most frustrating Celtic for me to watch. This blog post draws a parallel between Steve Kerr’s coaching decisions and the most frustrating managers I've encountered in my career. Like Kerr, these managers would point to their past successes and say, “But we won” or “We delivered.” However, benching one of your top performers to favor others, or forcing the team to conform to your style, for whatever reason, can have serious consequences. First and foremost, those successes required extraordinary efforts from the team's most experienced people, pushing them to their limits, and relying on some luck to achieve the goal. A team like USA Basketball, packed with talent and coached by seasoned veterans, shouldn't have to scrape through comeback games or narrowly win the final game. W...

  “Whatever you do, make sure that you keep a relationship going, don’t piss off others.” That is the advice I’ve been getting since my teenage years, for both my personal and professional career.   I lived and continue to live by that advice. It isn’t easy but it sure is worth it to live a life with no enemies and a large network of good people. BUT now I am starting to question the advice. I am not questioning if it is good or bad, but wondering if there is a better approach. In recent years, I also got the advice of engaging with your network, keep these bridges active, it is useless to have them there, take advantage of these relationships. Well, that was a step in the right direction. Don’t burn bridges, but also use them. STILL NOT ENOUGH - Limiting your interactions to your social circle, at work or home, will get you so far. The world is much larger than our circle and if our dream is to grow and expand our options, then we must learn how to connect to the availab...

As corporate leaders we are taught not to blame , we work hard to create a blameless work environment.  In the Private sector you hear all about mental safety and safe work environment. Yet, as we step into the public world, we ignore all of it, we turn into finger pointing monsters.  I’ve done this with my innocent little kids and I bet you did too.  Have you ever stepped into a room with a broken glass, something has spilled on the floor, and said “WHO DID THIS?”?  That question scares any of us even if not guilty. What if we ask “Is everyone ok?” wait for an answer and then ask “What happened?” When the explosion happened in Beirut , everyone raced to understand the root cause, questioning the “fireworks” storage explosion. Then we felt sorry for the people and city, and at the end we started looking for someone to blame. We have yet to see any reports about inspecting other storage facilities in Lebanon.  Any initiative to build policies and regulation for ...

Couple of years ago I was at an offsite with Christopher Avery “The Responsibility Process Guy” where I learned a lot but one thing really really stuck with me. He  warned us about avoiding questions such as What is wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? What did I do wrong? Mostly because our minds will work on finding an answer and providing that is likely what you need. Sometimes you ask “What is wrong with me?” when you misplace your keys and that question won’t help you find them.  Instead, you should be asking “when did I use them last?” or “where could they be?”.  Rather than “What did I do wrong?” try “What could I have done better?” I have also discovered that engineers are always seeking answers and solutions.  When I connected the two, I started monitoring and experimenting with my team.  The experiment was nothing more than a manager trying to get the proper answers from his team. Quickly I learned that the answers could vary depen...

This post is about leading by example and announcing your behavior and practices, including things that are second nature to you.  You do this to help your team culture and behavior. A couple months ago I took on a new role at Brainshark and I am having a great time working with the team!  Like many, many organizations that I’ve seen or heard of there are habits that become part of the culture. Some of the bad habits become blockers to growth and maturity of an organization. A simple example of these habits is turning on your video while on a conference call.  If you want everyone to turn their video and be fully present during calls, you must start by making sure you are turning on yours every time.  Sounds simple, right? Well it isn’t.  You must always practice these small behaviors even if they feel as awkward as being the only person with their camera on. You need to make sure technical difficulties don’t happen.  It will take time but if you rema...

MY Celtics exited the playoffs earlier than expected this year and all of it was self inflicted where they decided to ignore the value of regular season games and wait to “turn it on” in the playoffs. I love watching basketball but with this team my interest in watching them was generally mirroring their interest in playing the game - close to nonexistent. I’ve never believed in the “turn it on” concept as I haven’t seen anyone do it repeatedly, I don’t have the data of how successful the “turn it on”  concept is but it really can’t be over 50%.   Naturally it was time for me to dig deeper into my thoughts and rationalize the WHY “turn it on” is a bad approach and of course map it to a leadership lesson - specifically “Practice to Lead”. Most coaching is provided in an offsite or some random meeting with your manager or some coach assigned to you.  These coaching sessions always happen when everyone is very busy and hardly able to focus. In the sports world...

Here are the top 9 quotes that I use regularly as a personal communication tool. Quotes are a way to deliver a message and I am always intrigued how some of these old quotes still apply to our day to day life so I try to look for new ones and use them when appropriate.  I know that many people do not like to see or hear quotes so I try to be careful of where and when to use them. How do quotes relate to PracticeToLead? Quotes come to mind after a trigger, you see or hear something and that triggers a quote in your mind.  Find the quotes that helps you practice certain behavior or response to events and that quotes could be a good behavior practice point. I connected the quotes to my personal triggers and area of development Do you have a set of quotes that always come to mind? Do you pay attention to the triggers for these quotes? Ever feel like changing them? Practice makes perfect - <can’t find who said it first> I am not big on perfect. I am no...