Image credit: NewAfricaWe were two high school kids shooting hoops in my driveway when one sentence changed the course of my life.My friend Anish looked over and said: “What if we ran the play ourselves?”He meant the Indian community theater productions we’d both grown up watching. Every year, the adults in our community organized elaborate

The Thing We Call “Immaturity” Might Be the Leadership Skill You’re Missing

Leaders struggling with slow change adoption are often working hard on exactly the wrong thing. I learned this in a roundabout way this past weekend…My wife took the kids to visit her family for a few days, and I decided to tackle a home improvement project that had been quietly annoying me for months.We had

Slow Change Adoption? Maybe You’re Not Solving the Problem. Maybe You’re Just Patching It.

In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend (all the way back to childhood!) Dr. Anish Mahajan for a fascinating conversation about leadership, listening, and leading through uncertainty.Anish has led at the highest levels of healthcare and public health, from helping implement the Affordable Care Act to leading a major public hospital through

Say “Yes, And!” to Leadership, Listening, and Change with Anish Mahajan

In this solo episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on my brand-new book, Say “Yes, And!” to Change.For years, I believed the biggest challenge in change was resistance. But after working with leaders and teams across many industries, I realized something surprising:Resistance isn’t the biggest problem. Apathy is.Most people aren’t openly fighting change—they’re quietly checked out.In

“Yes, And!” to Saying “Yes, And!” to Change (Inside the Framework from My New Book) 

Image credit: iqonceptHere’s something I learned from 20+ years of improv: The scenes that fall flat aren’t usually missing skill. They’re missing commitment.The performers are hedging. Playing not to fail instead of playing to win. Trying to be acceptable rather than authentic.I see the exact same pattern in teams navigating change. And the fix isn’t

Stop Playing Not to Fail: Why Teams Get Stuck During Change

One of the most famous lines in Game of Thrones comes from Littlefinger:“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.”I love the show. (Well… most of it. IYKYK…) and think about it often. My social media algorithms like to pop clips up into my feed, and this quote came up recently.And that made me realize

Change Isn’t a Pit. It’s a Ladder.