Next Level Blog

JANUARY 3, 2023

How you start your day is predictive of how your day is going to end. And a consecutive series of good starts is predictive of not just how your year is going to start but also how it ends. Over the weekend, I saw a quote from country star and fellow native West Virginian Brad Paisley that inspired this post – “Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Consider this post a public service announcement. If you don’t have a peer coach, you need to go recruit one. It will be one of the best things you do this year for yourself and your newly recruited peer coach. How do I know that? Because I’ve had scores of leaders tell me so. As I’ve written here before, peer coaching is an important component of just about every leadership development program we offer at the Eblin Group – whether it’s the Next Level Leadership® group coaching program, the Next

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 28, 2022

Between the leaders I’ve worked with in our Next Level Leadership® group coaching program and the individual executives I’ve coached over the last 20 plus years, I’ve delivered around 2,000 colleague feedback reports. And there’s one thing I’ve seen again and again in so many of those feedback conversations. High achieving, ambitious leaders want to blow right past the strengths that have enabled their success and dive right into what they need to “fix.”.

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Next Level Blog

MAY 3, 2022

I love it when I learn from the people I’m coaching. Fortunately, that happens a lot including as recently as a few weeks ago when I was talking with Rishi, a country manager on a leadership team I’m coaching. In a prep conversation for an upcoming team coaching session, I asked Rishi what’s been working lately with the team he leads. Among other things, he mentioned that he’s been giving his team the latitude to make their own decisions and then own those decisions.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 15, 2022

The one thing that I think all of my clients agree on is that they’re sick of meetings. That tracks back to the quantity of meetings they have in a day or a week – way too many, and to the quality of the meetings they attend – too often, they’re tortuous and inconclusive. In other words, a painful waste of time. There’s a lot out there about how to run a good meeting so I’m not really going to get into that here.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 8, 2022

One thing I’ve written about a lot over the years is that if you’re in a large organization, your team’s good work doesn’t speak for itself; you, as the team leader, have to speak for the work. In the absence of a thoughtful and methodical process for sharing what your team is contributing to achieving results, many senior executives simply have too much on their radar screens to notice and acknowledge the good work that’s being accomplished.

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Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

In over thirty years of either working for senior executives, being a senior executive, or coaching senior executives, I’ve come to a few conclusions. One of them is that, too often, there’s an overemphasis on strategy and an underemphasis on culture. When that’s the case, the outcomes usually aren’t the greatest. There’s a reason the late, great Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2021

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about when things have to be perfect and when “good enough” is good enough. It probably won’t be the last. As happened a couple of weeks ago, just about every time I work with a new cohort of leaders in our Next Level Leadership® group coaching program , someone ends up choosing the 360-degree feedback behavior, “Effectively differentiates between efforts that require perfection and those for which “good enough” is sufficient,” as a focal point for their pe

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

This is the week when Diane and I are taking our annual personal planning retreat together. We’re not quite sure when we started this tradition but it was at least 25 years ago. As I’ve written about before , back in the early days we spent a weekend at a $25 a night cabin in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. This year, it’s a crisp November week on a South Carolina beach.

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Here’s something that might make your head spin. Next week will mark 20 months since the day we all learned that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were quarantined with COVID in Australia and the NBA shut down its season on a dime when a player was diagnosed with COVID during pre-game warmups and the arena was cleared of fans. In the United States, March 11, 2020 was the day the pandemic got real.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of sharing an auditorium with dozens of motivated young college men from the HBCU North Carolina Central University and other institutions. I know they were motivated because they showed up at 8:30 am on a Saturday morning for the Durham Success Summit’s (DSS) annual flagship event. They then spent the day in conversation with President Obama’s former aide and “body man”, Reggie Love ; learning how to build their personal brands, getting career development

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Next Level Blog

AUGUST 17, 2021

Well, it looks like a lot of us, including me , called the end of the pandemic way too soon. Remember those blissful few months in the late Spring and early Summer when we were walking into restaurants and stores without a mask? Making plans to go back to the office in the Fall? COVID case rates were falling. Vaccination rates were rising. And then the fun and optimism came to a screeching halt as vaccination rates plateaued, the Delta variant arrived, the masks went back on and plans for the Fa

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Next Level Blog

JULY 13, 2021

If there’s one topic that’s a common denominator in many of the conversations I’ve had with senior executives over the past few months, it’s how to handle the issue of employees returning to the office. Other than the ones who have said that everyone can work remotely, I haven’t talked with or heard of any companies that have really figured it out yet.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 15, 2021

It’s interesting how things run in patterns. For instance, lately I’ve had a number of conversations with clients and colleagues about talented team members who have gotten themselves stuck in the role of superstar individual contributors when they have the desire and capacity to be enterprise-wide leaders. These folks are actually team leaders with broad scopes of responsibility so they have the platform to operate as a leader across their enterprise but they haven’t let go of the superstar, go

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 26, 2021

A few weeks ago, I had an online Q&A session with a senior executive following a keynote presentation I did for her company’s annual senior leadership summit. Like a lot of organizations, this company has a senior leadership team conference at the beginning of the year – either fiscal or calendar – to lay out their themes, goals and plans for the next 12 months.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 30, 2021

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to coach the members of a couple of different corporate senior leadership teams. The coaching approach I use for leadership teams is a lot like the one I use for individual leaders. We start with self-assessment and colleague feedback for each team member to identify strengths that can be leveraged in new ways along with the one or two development opportunities that would make the biggest difference if the leader moved the needle on them in a positive

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 5, 2021

Even though we’re just a few days removed from 2020, the first work week of the new year represents a blank slate. Most of 2021 still lies ahead and we have lots of opportunity right now to think about how we want to influence the outcomes that are yet to be created. Gandhi wrote that, “In regard to every action, one must know the result that is expected to follow.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Last week I got a question from one of my all-time favorite executive coaching clients. At the beginning of the call, the first thing he said was, “I’ve got to ask you a question. Is everyone you’re talking to feeling exhausted?” I didn’t need to think about that one at all. My answer was an immediate, “Yes, absolutely. Everyone I talk to, me included, is flat out exhausted.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 1, 2020

The publication date of this post, December 1, 2020, marks the 20 th anniversary of our leadership development company, The Eblin Group. Over the past two decades, colleagues, friends and clients have often asked my wife, life and business partner Diane and me how we’ve grown the business over two decades and what we’ve learned along the way. There’s a lot to say and share about that for sure – more than one blog post can address.

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

As many of us approach family Thanksgiving gatherings via Zoom, I’ve been thinking about all the perspective shifts I’ve had during this year of the pandemic. I started using the phrase, “pandemic perspective shift”, a couple of months ago when I began telling friends, colleagues and clients about my upcoming move from Los Angeles to North Carolina.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 20, 2020

In case you’ve lost count, you may be one of the many of us who are in month eight of working from home. Based on the plans of companies like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Aetna, Mastercard and others, it looks like a lot of people are going to continue working from home well into 2021 and, in some cases, forever. That means this is a good time to take a look at where you can up your game as an online leader and communicator.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Most of the organizations I’m talking to and observing during the pandemic recognize the need to up their levels of innovation and agility. After all, if you need to pivot your business model and set yourself up to succeed in whatever environment presents itself next, you need to have those two qualities embedded in your culture. Some companies have been successful in pivoting quickly, while others have found it more challenging.

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Next Level Blog

AUGUST 4, 2020

I’m observing (virtually, of course) more and more leaders who are short-termers. By that, I don’t mean that they’re not long for their jobs. What I mean is that they’re not looking far enough out into the future. At the beginning of the pandemic, this probably made sense. As I wrote back in May , the first eight weeks or so of the quarantine era were about reinventing work processes so people could work from home.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 27, 2020

What verb tense is your mind spending most of its time in – present, past or future? How about the members of your team – what time frame are their minds working in? You might consider those questions to be a bit weird or out there, but if you stop and examine the nature of your language and the quality of your thinking, you may find they’re more relevant than you’d initially think.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 21, 2020

Gary Burnison , the CEO of recruiting and leadership development firm Korn-Ferry writes a weekly email every week which I subscribe to. Not surprisingly, a lot of his notes the past several months have focused on leading during the pandemic. This past week, Gary offered a pointed metaphor to describe where he thinks we collectively are in the process.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 24, 2020

Over the past month, I’ve been running two or three online sessions a week with groups of leaders to provide them with some reference points and space to think about how to lead in our current environment. Leadership is always challenging. It’s more so during a pandemic when work routines and business plans are completely disrupted. It’s even more challenging during a much needed but very intense period of protests, conversations and consideration in service of establishing anti-racist policies

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 17, 2020

I’ve had a lot of conversations with corporate leaders over the past couple of weeks that have all focused on variations of the same question, “What can I do to help end racism?” This is one of those times when I’m glad that the conventional wisdom on how to coach others is that it’s more about the questions than the answers. I’m good at asking questions, but on the topic of ending racism, don’t have a lot of answers based on long-term personal experience.

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Next Level Blog

MAY 5, 2020

One of the bright spots for me of this life-changing era we’re all living through is the stories of human connection that I hear from the executives I speak with every week. Again and again, they share moments or emails that demonstrate how tough times can bring out the best in leaders and their teams. I’m struck by how the moments that matter most are the ones in which leaders share themselves as human beings and encourage their team members to do the same.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 31, 2020

In times of crisis, complex decisions often have to be made and implemented quickly. It can be challenging to coordinate and obtain buy-in on those big decisions even when the stakeholders can get in a room together to hash it all out. In the new “Work from Home” (WFH) era sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, being in the same room isn’t an option. That can lead to some predictable conflict-management problems that you can avoid with a little foresight and creativity.

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Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Ever had a manager who told you they had an “open-door policy?” Who knows, maybe you’ve even declared that yourself. The open-door policy implies that your team members or colleagues can come to you with anything. That desire to be a transparent and open leader is admirable. The problem starts when people knock on the proverbial door (and knock and knock) and no one’s home.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 8, 2020

Life is better when you have fans – people who know and appreciate you, support you and can’t wait to see what you do next. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a rock star, Instagram influencer or a professional athlete. All of us need fans. Fanocracy. In a recent conversation with David Meerman Scott , co-author of the new book, Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans , I learned a lot about how to find and connect with your fans.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 18, 2019

As 2019 winds down, I’ve been talking with a lot of clients and one thing that everyone (including me) has in common is that we’re coming in hot. The end of year cram down to get stuff done before the holiday break begins has felt crazier than ever. And, then, in a couple of weeks, we’ll wipe the slate clean and start pursuing the goals of 2020. Here’s some advice (for myself as much as anyone) before you dive into next year.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 11, 2019

The best leaders I work with as an executive coach encourage open and honest dialogue. They’ve learned and understand why it’s so important for the people on their team and in their organizations to be completely comfortable with speaking up. First, you really want people contributing their best ideas on a regular basis because that’s how you win. Second, if your people aren’t contributing, speaking up and sharing the truth as they see it, you’re going to be flying blind as a leader.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 23, 2019

This is the time of year when a lot of the leaders I work with are buckling down to write up annual performance reviews for the people on their team. This is a process that almost no one enjoys – neither the reviewer or the reviewee. Seriously, do you know anyone in any role who looks forward to an annual performance review? There are a lot of reasons why annual performance review processes usually suck.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Yesterday, I was starting a call with a long-time client I hadn’t talked with in a few months. In a somewhat breathless tone of voice, the first words she said after hello were, “I can’t believe it’s already the end of September! Where has this year gone?”. That’s a question that I and, probably, most of us in the corporate world could have easily asked.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

One of my mentors, Harvard professor Ron Heifetz, likes to say that leaders can either be on the dance floor or on the balcony. In the fast-paced world that we live and work in, it can be all too easy to spend most of your time dancing and not enough up on the balcony observing what’s working, what’s not and what adjustments you need to make to live and lead at your best.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

If you’re in a leadership role, there’s a pretty decent chance that when you were a kid, you were one of the smartest kids in class. If that wasn’t you, you probably remember who was. You know the smartest kid routine. They always had the right answer and wanted to make sure everyone else – especially the teacher – knew it. In organizational leadership, being right is less important than being effective.

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