1: Why pay attention to the stories you are telling yourself?

And why devote the time, effort, and energy to change these stories?

It’s not going to be easy, Crucial Conversations authors Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory warn us.

There are two reasons you may want to change the stories you are telling yourself:

Reason #1: Bad results.

Maybe you … continue reading

1: That’s what the Total Quality Management proponents say.  

“In the same way that a fever alerts us that something is wrong with our bodies, a defect alerts us that something is wrong with our businesses—or the domain of our lives in which the defect appears,” Fred Kofman writes in his book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.  

When a problem occurs, our tendency is to fix … continue reading

1: Stu was mad as hell.  

“We got screwed,” he told Fred Kofman, Fred relays in his book  The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.  

Stu was a sales executive for an enterprise software company. Fred served as an advisor to the firm and was leading a workshop with the sales team.

Several months earlier, the company had introduced a highly-anticipated new version of its core product.  … continue reading

1: It was 6 pm. Andrés parked his car across the street from his home.

“As he stepped out, two armed robbers assaulted him,” Fred Kofman writes in his book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.

One of the thieves pointed a gun at him and commanded him to open the front door of his home.

Andrés stayed calm.

“Listen, guys, my wife and daughter are inside. … continue reading

1: Fred Kofman was writing. So was his wife. Who was sitting next to him.

She asked him if he wanted something to drink.

“Yes,” I told her, he recalls in his book The Meaning Revolution. “Some soda water, thank you.”

“Right away, as soon as I send this e-mail,” she responded.

As Fred waited for her to get him a drink, he “felt a deeper sense of thirst … continue reading

1: It was a bright, sunny November morning in 2010.

“Qantas Airways Flight 32 took off from Singapore en route to Sydney,” Fred Kofman writes in his book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.

As pilot Richard de Crespigny flew the plane to eight thousand feet, he heard a loud boom. Then, a crashing sound.

“One of the engines had caught fire,” Fred writes. “The ensuing … continue reading