Book Review: Trust Agents

“Trust agents have a desire to connect good people together.” Making connections and gaining people’s trust is the premise of the book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. The authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith bring together a lot of great ideas that really strike a chord when you read them. [...]

Commitment

Over the past few days it’s hit me squarely between the eyes that I have not been contributing enough to the online world. My excuse (and I’ve heard this from many product managers) is that I’ve been heads down on an intense product release and it’s sucking all my time and energy. While that is [...]

Feedback

I heard the statement “feedback is the breakfast of champions” while listening to a recent podcast. There is a lot of truth to that statement. After hearing it I started to break it down to see if I could come up with a new statement for Lead on Purpose readers: Feedback: The word feedback is a technical [...]

Five questions to ask each week

I ran across a great audio blog post by Mark Sanborn where he poses five questions we should ask ourselves at the beginning of each week. These questions serve as a guide to live by design and not just react to things as they come. They will improve your personal and professional situation. Here are [...]

Five championship strategies

One of the most amazing sports records in the history of all sports is 401 wins and 9 losses. This is the career record of Larry Gelwix, coach of the Highland High rugby team (Salt Lake City) for more than three decades. This team was featured in the recent movie Forever Strong. Larry recently recorded a podcast with [...]

Leadership and learning

One of the key tenets of leadership is the learning. Great leaders are learners. They read voraciously. They write and teach what they learn. Learning is as much a part of their life as eating. These are a few of my favorite quotes that illustrate the importance of learning: In a time of drastic change [...]

Creating value

What are you doing to create value for your organization? What significance do you bring to the table? As a leader, how do you inspire your people to give their best to your cause? Take a minute to answer these questions. The following quote from The Artist Farm links earning money to creating value: Next time [...]

Customer expectations

The expectations customers have of business leaders are different today than they were even a few years ago. They expect marketers to stop pitching things and start helping them understand how they can get what they need. They expect product managers to show them how their products can solve problems and help them succeed. The [...]

Leadership and persistence

Persistence is one of the key characteristics of great leaders. Gaining it requires determination and a mindset that — no matter what happens — you will stick to your principles and goals. Persistence in leadership is analogous to running a marathon. To run a successful marathon you have to spend ample time (months or more) [...]

Trust

The recent theme at Lead on Purpose is trust. This focus has come primarily from reading The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. He discusses the concept of building a trust account, which is similar to a bank account. By behaving in ways that build trust you make deposits, by behaving in ways that destroy trust you [...]