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I grew up in Omaha, but have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1991. When I first arrived here, the biggest Silicon Valley companies were probably Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Oracle…and Apple Computer. Since then, something called “the Internet” has happened, and Bay Area companies (Yahoo, eBay, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Salesforce, Netflix, … [Read more...] about Latest Innovation Secrets from California

I was honored when Joe Walowski, VP of Alexa at Amazon, recently asked me to conduct a workshop for his global leadership team. Amazon is one of the most intense and successful organizations in the world, so I knew their expectations would be very high for my presentation. Joe requested that I create a 90-minute talk with the theme of … [Read more...] about My Workshop for Amazon’s Alexa Team

Would you like to be happier at work? Would you like to boost the performance of your team at work - whether you're a manager, or an individual contributor? I hope you find this post useful in addressing those questions... 1). Motivate your team. Do NOT demotivate them ; - ) Sometimes the best thing is knowing what NOT to do...and then … [Read more...] about Secrets to Happy, Impactful Teams

Mark Kelly is an awesome young business leader, based in Ireland. He asked me for my best advice on how to build peak performance teams, because I've been working in Silicon Valley for 20 years.  We did a video recording for his blog, called "What I Know Now." Watch the entire 20-minute video here. Or, you can skip forward to specific parts of … [Read more...] about I was asked how to build great teams. Here’s what I said.

I like to share best practices on how to build happy, peak performance teams -- the Silicon Valley Way. Sometimes the focus is more on the "happy" part -- including research on resiliency, positive thinking, stress reduction, mindfulness, purpose, forgiveness, legacy and inspiration. Other times, you will see more on "peak performance" -- which … [Read more...] about Resilience, Humor, and Privilege

1). What makes people unhappy at your workplace? Send me an email, or let me know the factors which go into discontent at work. (I'll keep your answer confidential.) Why am I asking? I'm writing a book on how to lead happy, high-performance teams. But to talk about "happiness" at work, it helps to understand what people define as … [Read more...] about Are You Unhappy at Work? Why?