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Not long ago I came across this photo of my sweet horse, Diamond. He’s been gone for a few years but is never far from my heart. Seeing his picture was like hitting the rewind button and I was face to face with a former iteration of myself.  Have you ever looked back on something…

A year ago a client suggested I watch the Netflix series, “Chimp Nation”  to get a better sense of their current work environment.  If you’ve not seen it, it’s an extraordinary documentary on a chimpanzee colony based in Uganda’s Kibale National Park.   What’s fascinating is how it demonstrates the way hierarchy in this colony…

In a clear, steady voice Sarah, the COO of a healthcare start-up, described her new CEO: “She continually makes claims and promises to the board not backed up with data.  She pings people on the team at all hours, on the weekends, instructing them to do work in direct conflict with our stated priorities.  When…

Throughout this blog series we have examined the perception-reality gap between senior executives and middle managers regarding organizational change and that gap’s negative impact on people and business success. Wrapping up the series, let’s explore how impaired feedback loops perpetuate this perception-reality gap by manifesting “naked emperor syndrome”. Naked Emperor Syndrome and Organizational ChangeHans Christian…

Most of us can probably think of a time when we were blamed for something that was not our fault. Being intentionally made a scapegoat is unfair and it can cause real damage. Unintentional scapegoating is something I see frequently in organizations, and it is no less damaging. It’s a practice that can widen the…

In my last post we explored how the perception-reality gap between senior executives and middle managers shows up during organizational change and the negative impact the gap has on people and business success. But what causes this gap in the first place? In my experience, one driver is the interplay between the role demands of…