Entries by Dave Carr

Why Does Money Cost So Much?

Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can’t win until you do this.  – Dave Ramsey When it comes to money, we are not taught the meaning and value of money, let alone how […]

Does Your Organization Have a Culture of Leadership?

Eighteen participants completed the 11-week City of Asheville, NC, Culture of Leadership. The 2-day Art of Leadership workshop helped to develop their leadership with guidance from the five practices of exemplary leadership from Kouzes and Posner’s The Leadership Challenge. Participants went online to take the MBTI. The feedback revealed how their preferences impacted their ability […]

My Word for 2020…

Each year I pick a word (or a word picks me!) rather than a resolution to focus on. I have learned from experience, resolutions come and go as evidenced by how crowded the gym will be in January and then uncrowded in February! Discovering a word and focusing on that word is sticky and becomes […]

What About Additional Characteristics of an Admired Leader?

James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge, have been surveying followers for over the past thirty years on what are the top seven characteristics out of twenty of an admired leader. Look at the latest results from the 2017 survey on the left. The top four characteristics of an admired leader are honesty, competence, […]

What Do You and Your Cohorts Need to Escape?

I recently read Rachel Sugar’s, Vox, The Great Escape post. She writes there are over 2,300 escape rooms in the United States. TripAdvisor says there are seven escape rooms in the Asheville area. If you are not aware of these places, they are rooms where you gather with up to 7 other people and try […]

Leader As Mentor: Do you?

I’ll begin with what I know for sure: Experience trumps knowledge. Mentors have experience. The mentors in my life have had a significant role in where I am and what I am doing today. They gave and still give me the gift of their time and their wisdom. My mentors help me be a better […]

I Before Team Except After…

Once again, my Cincinnati Reds are cellar-dwellers for 2019. On an average home game, the Reds’ fans fill just over a third of Great American Ballpark’s 42,319 seats, reflecting the Reds’ ability to lose more than win. There are still gripes about Dick Williams, the general manager, and how he manages.  Six-time MLB All-Star Joey […]

What Are the Implications of…

A young man came to me recently. He has just experienced his fourth department leadership change in three years. He was a mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment. He was losing hope in the organization and its leadership. The future concerns him because he wants stability. He asked for answers or at least my advice. […]

The Wall

A wall is a door. – Ralph Waldo Emerson One of the most powerful experience-based initiatives in my toolbox is the Group Wall. Its a good initiative to do with groups when they have reached a plateau of either thinking “we’re good,” when egos are still at play or the group is still not collaborating […]