There’s the plan, and then there’s what actually happens.  Sometimes one resembles the other, but many times not.  What do you do when you find an enormous gap between the two and everything seems to be falling apart? Today we’ll look at a high-risk plan that failed badly,  see what the people involved did about it, […]

The post When the Plan Fails: 5 Things to Do When it All Falls Through appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

In 1914, a German U-boat off the coast of England fired a torpedo that sunk the British passenger liner Lusitania.  Even though there were plenty of life vests for every passenger and more than enough seats in the available life boats, most passengers did not survive the encounter. One key reason was that they did […]

The post 11 Key Rehearsal Techniques to Keep Your Plan From Getting Torpedoed appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

In the 2011 Grand Prix Formula One race in Monaco, Lewis Hamilton’s car collided with another racer.  There was damage to the rear wing end plate of his car.  Under any other circumstances, his racing day would have been over.  Changing tires during a pit stop is one thing, but repairing something more complicated like […]

The post Book Notes: The Slow Fix appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

Not sure where your team is heading?  Wonder what will be waiting for you when you get there?  Sounds like you might just be on the Bus to Abilene.  Here’s how to recognize if you’re on that Bus and how to get it turned in the right direction. The Abilene Paradox The Abilene paradox was […]

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The first time I heard the term “backwards planning” I thought it was a mistake.  The last thing I wanted was to be backwards about my planning.  But that’s not what they meant at all.  Today we’ll talk about what backwards planning is and how you can use this technique to develop a successful plan […]

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Have you ever been getting ready to do something important, then forgot to take care of one critical thing?  That almost happened to me a couple weeks ago.  Fortunately, there was a technique we used that saved us some embarrassment and helped make sure things went smoothly.  It’s called the Pre-execution Checklist, and today we’re […]

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Having lived in 19 places in my life (so far), I’ve been in my share of churches, but the one we go to now has always struck me as being a little more organized and better run than most.  Recently I discovered one of the reasons why.  We could all stand to take a page […]

The post They Do This in Church, Too? 9 Ways Getting Constructive Feedback is a Game-Changer appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

Two big keys to success in leading a team are to make sure everyone is on the same wavelength, and be in a position to control the action.  In this two minute tip I’m going to show you a team trying to solve a problem, and talk about how what the leader is doing right […]

The post How to Focus the Team and Know Where to Be appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

Captain Ahab is famous in modern fiction for his maniacal pursuit of the Great White Whale, Moby-Dick.  He gets a lot of bad press for his poor leadership style, and things didn’t end up going very well for most of the crew by the end of the book. But there is one thing that the […]

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How do you get 30 very different people to agree on something?  How do you engage all those minds to come up with an annual plan?  It doesn’t need to be as challenging as interpreting the Mayan calendar. Every year our Scout troop meets in August with one objective:  come up with a plan for next […]

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