Flashback Friday: The call for courageous leadership has gone out - how will you answer?
Anchored by a Just Cause, infinite games require courageous leadership. According to author Simon Sinek that means being willing to stand up to internal and external pressure to conform, in order to stay true to your cause.
Flashback Friday: Attitude and effort is still what it is all about. Give this popular 2018 blog a read. Are you being open minded and giving your best effort?
About a year into my tenure at Gibson, I was named to the Leadership Team and responsible for our revenue and growth in a “Chief Growth Officer” role. Not only was I new to Gibson, I previously had no technical knowledge or career experience in two of our three business units. Before my first major meeting with our group, I was already hearing the whispers about this newly created role and my (lack of) qualifications to be in it.
Flashback Friday: A popular blog post from 2020 with a message that is just as important today. Is your organization playing the infinite game? What is your Just Cause?
“The true value of an organization is measured by the desire others have to contribute to that organization’s ability to keep succeeding, not just during the time they are there, but well beyond their own tenure.” - Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game
In 2009’s Start With Why, author Simon Sinek makes the point that all organizations and individuals have a “Why.” It’s our origin story, the reason we do what we do.
Why is our purpose, cause, or belief. Our purpose comes from our past. It’s born out of how we were raised and the values we were exposed to.
And, according to Sinek, it’s far more important than how you do it or what you deliver. As he often says, “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”
Flashback Friday: I know my parents don't love this story, but it is one of our most popular blogs and the experience taught me some valuable lessons.
“You know it’s illegal what they’re doing. Making you work and all,” said Larry’s mom. Larry and his family lived next door to my family growing up. He and I were typical neighborhood buddies. While Larry and I liked all the same things boys our age typically did, our parents were anything but similar.
As my 6th grade year was coming to an end, my Dad made it known that it was time for me to “go to work.” I would have my choice of working around the house every day of my summer break doing various chores, for free; or I could find someone willing to pay me. But either way, I’d be working forty hours per week.
Flashback Friday: Do The Right Thing is still a value we live by at Gibson. Give this popular blog from 2014 a read. Does integrity “live” at your organization and in your relationships?
One of our Core Values is: Integrity Matters - Always Do the Right Thing. It seems elementary to ask why integrity matters. The answers are all too obvious, right? Yet all too often there are examples of integrity issues in our world, in business and in our personal affairs.
I checked out a few dictionaries online and they define integrity as: The quality of being honest and fair; the state of being complete or whole; an adherence to moral and ethical principles; to be honest and have sound moral character.
One of my partners, Mark Wobbe, pointed me to another website that offers a simple formula to define integrity:
Integrity = (Accountability + Competence + Ethics) – Corruption
Flashback Friday: This is our most read blog of all-time. Even though it was written in 2014, the qualities discussed are just as important to teams today. When this was written, I was celebrating 17 years with my best teammate, Kimra. Next week it will be 25! Happy Anniversary, Kimra!
We are committed to teaming at Gibson. Perhaps more than any other firm in our industry.
Building an effective team isn’t so easy. Good teams have a sum that is greater than the individual pieces. This requires that egos are set aside to allow the entity of the team to be greater than any one member. By putting everyone on the team in a position to do what they do best, high achievement is possible. I find no coincidence that since evolving to the team model, we’ve also had the best growth in our eighty year history.
So what are the top qualities of an effective team player? I consulted the For Dummies to learn what great teammates do differently than others.
Flashback Friday: Originally published in 2013, this blog is crowd favorite and one of my personal favorites - lessons from my now 98 year old grandma. Next month she'll celebrate her 99th birthday!
With Grandparent’s Day on Sunday, I want to honor my last living grandparent, ninety year old Dorothy Gerber. Not only is Grandma Dorothy an amazing woman, she also is officially the biggest and most devoted fan of my blog.
She devotedly commented on my first ever stab at blogging. It was entitled “Defining and Living Core Beliefs” from January 30, 2013. Using her original free Juno email handle from the early 1990s, she found her way to my site and then posted this: “Good job Tim. I am proud of you and Gibson.”
Flashback Friday: Originally published in 2017, this blog is one of our most popular and still very relevant today. I've seen many people share recently about the books they read in 2021 and what they hope to read in 2022. I hope this blog gives you a few ideas as you complete your must-read list for the new year!
There are plenty of book lists out there. This post is a little different. While I’ve got examples of specific books for you, more importantly I want to emphasize the kind of books you should read. As Japanese author Haruki Murakami has written, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
“Some things are up to us and others are not.” – The Enchiridion
The ancient Stoics taught that we own only our choice of thoughts and actions. Everything else – the externals – remain outside of our own doing.
That means we have way more agency in who and what we are than we tell ourselves. While its not within our power to determine the outcomes, our choice of inputs most definitely are.
Traditionally this is the time when I highlight the top 10 blogs of the year, but in 2021 we introduced something brand new – The Edge Podcast! So, this year, let’s celebrate both our top blogs AND our top podcast episodes.
