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I’m not a big fan of office space. At one point in my career I served as a senior leader without an office. It was very educational. Landing in various open spaces in the organization allowed me to see first hand how customers navigated and our team served. I learned to respect the hard work and trying circumstances our team encountered. For me, the decision to not have an office was well received by the organization and beneficial to my leadership duties.

"Expensive oil is going to transform the American culture as radically as cheap oil did,"predicts David Mogavero, a Sacramento-based architect and smart-growth proponent. - Wall Street Journal

Assumptions are to leaders as street signs are to drivers.  In the same way that street signs can be missed, ignored or misinterpreted creating dangerous situations -- so too with assumptions.

The topic of the day occupying the "water cooler" chat around the office likely includes the rising price of gas.  Gas prices create an immediate impact to the American consumer and worker.  Millions of lines of copy have been written in recent months about the impact of oil prices and the patterns in which our lives are changing.  The challenge for leaders is to become...  >> READ MORE

Under the "simple elegance" theme, I came across a CBS News Report outlining how UPS is using a simple approach to an expensive problem.  By mapping their daily routes out so that the driver makes only right turns, UPS saved 3.3 million gallons of gas last year.  By turning right, idle time and "gunning" to cross traffic was eliminated, both gas consuming activities.

Too often we look for expensive technological solutions or capital intensive interventions to solve problems that warrant a more "simple elegance" in their approach.  By starting with the premise of solving without spending we can force ourselves and our team to consider the simple solutions first.  It could be the solution that b...  >> READ MORE