Category: Leadership

Leadership Moment: Visibly Representing I spent the weekend alternating between terror and belonging. My wife and I went to Frankfurt to celebrate our 20th anniversary by watching the Patriots play an international game. As a Jew, a lot of friends had cautioned me to be careful, especially given the antisemitic unrest blooming all across the world.…

Leadership Moment: DEI is in dire straits Bill Ackman called out Harvard lackadaisical approach to antisemitism (again), and a notably component is his assertion that “Harvard’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging is an important contributing factor to the problem.” I doubt this surprises anyone who isn’t in an identity group that DEI offices…

Leadership Moment: A Coach’s Scars Dante Scarnecchia was just inducted into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame. Everyone who spoke about him – then, or at any time during his tenure – described him as one of the greatest assistant coaches (he coached the offensive line for the Patriots for two decades) ever, but…

Leadership Moment: Harvard and Anti-Semitism Last week, I didn’t send out a newsletter, because I was going to write it up on Sunday, but then, like much of the world, I was stunned and dismayed at the vile actions of Hamas in invading Israel, and raping, hostage-taking, and murdering their way through Israeli civilians. Words…

Leadership Moment: Welcome to New York Last week, Taylor Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce became public knowledge when she showed up in Kansas City to watch the Chiefs play. This week, the Chiefs travelled to New York to play the Jets, and Taylor Swift’s anticipated appearance at the game had the NFL community all aflutter.…

Leadership Moment: Communicating Uncertainty In a recent (online) conversation about cybersecurity breaches and the sometimes self-inflicted wounds that companies suffer, I noted, “The ATM networks that went down during Slammer were mostly self-inflicted.” A colleague responded that “”Mostly” implies Slammer took down ATMs.” That’s a fair reading of the uncertainty I was trying to communicate,…

Leadership Moment: Basic Memories On September 11, 2001, Danny Lewin was murdered. On the eleventh anniversary of his death, I remembered how a critical moment of delegation led to my buy-in and belief. Two years ago, I recalled a complicated legacy of a catchphrase used with different context. This year, I’m reminded of how Danny…

Leadership Moment: Return to Office It seems like every time I turn around, I’m seeing another article on large company “return to work” programs. I hate that phrase – it implies that people who aren’t working in a specific office aren’t, well, working. For some companies, being in the office is already happening – a…

Leadership Moment: Empty Platitudes Since I have two teenagers, this summer has included college scouting, with our last two weeks including 4 college visits. At one of them, a very large state school, the person running the information session said, “There are a lot of ways to make a big school feel like a little…

Leadership Moment: Chasing a Non-Story Daniel Rosney, BBCNews reporter, was assigned to report on the death of Lil Tay. Except Lil Tay wasn’t dead. While numerous outlets took a single Instagram post and ran with it, Daniel spent the day trying to verify the story. He spent a lot of energy – over ten hours…