When something goes wrong, ‘don’t ask who, ask why.

With ‘long-term greedy,’ the time horizon for calculating ROI isn’t days, weeks, or even quarters—it’syears, and maybe decades.

Our brains are hardwired for stories. That’s why information presented in a recognizable archetypeform, like a quest narrative, is more memorable and emotionally resonant.

Lose your excuses: You don’t want to feel bad. You feel held hostage. It’s just a small thing. I can’t holdthis person accountable. My high performers will pick up the slack. It’s always been this way. All areexcuses to tolerate stuff you shouldn’t. All of them are costly.

We help leaders measure and manage culture. Specifically, we help them establish a reliable culturemetric, measure the gap between the culture they have and the culture they need, and then close it.

Showing up’ means being present, listening, responding, showing you care: These acts show that youare a member of your employees’ tribe and worthy of their trust.

Show more than tell is also about sustaining the focus on stated priorities even when it’s boring andother shiny objects and executive brain candy are competing for your attention.

Everything that happens in an organization happens in or because of a conversation. If you want tochange the culture, you’ve got to change the conversation.

Many leaders underappreciate and underutilize simple expressions of gratitude as a reinforcing warmsignal. saying ‘thanks’ doesn’t cost you money and requires hardly any time. But it does require that youpay attention.

If you’re trying to predict human economic behavior—and you don’t include emotions in yourequation—your predictions will probably be way off. Emotions factor heavily into the algorithms thatproduce our trade-off decisions.