I’m delighted  that President Obama has nominated the fabulous Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Mary Jo is not only an incredibly talented and accomplished attorney — having put away mob boss John Gotti and the WTC bombers back in the ’90s, among others —...

With the beginning of a new year, defense giant General Dynamics’ new CEO, Phebe Novakovic, became the 21st woman Fortune 500 CEO, a first. Novakovic, along with Marilyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin’s recently appointed CEO, are the first women to lead the two defense firms. Three other notable tech companies...

Passwords are the bane of my existence.  My cheat sheet is crammed with more than 60 different password-protected accounts where I must know not only my password but also my user i.d.  How many times have you had to re-set a password on an infrequently used account?  When my...

Hank and I attended the Navy Cross ceremony yesterday for United States Marine Corps Sergeant Matthew T. Abbate, who received our country’s second highest medal for valor in combat as a result of his service in Afgahnistan.  Sadly, the award was given posthumously, for six weeks after Sergeant Abbate’s...

One of the keys to success is knowing, and leveraging, your strengths, rather than obsessing over how to improve your weaknesses.  The same is true for organizations, and their people.  Too often professional development focuses on programs and individual interventions designed to help the people who are struggling, rather...

Ron Padgett’s book of poetry, How to Be Perfect, contains all kinds of nuggets that are worthy of sharing this morning: Get some sleep. Eat an orange every morning. Be friendly. It will help make you happy. Hope for everything. Expect nothing. Take care of things close to home...

A recent column in the New York Times by Jane Brody on the power of optimism brought me back to my training in appreciative inquiry and positive psychology at the College of Executive coaching.  Brody shared the research that optimists had lower death rates than pessimists over a 30-year...

I’ve been traveling quite a bit in the past month, and dealing with family illness, so it’s been a challenge keeping up with the email that lands in my in box every day. And truth be told, in the best of times I find efficiency with email to be...