Kevin Pokorny Consulting

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How to Avoid Thinking Traps: Boost your Resilience

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thinking-trap-leadership-kevin-pokorny
Okay, let’s be honest. How many of us have jumped to conclusions or attempted to mind read another person’s thoughts? What was the result? We may have caused embarrassment, made an unwise decision, or damaged a working relationship. But, for some reason, we think we’ve got it all figured out when things happen to us.

In the book “The Resilience Factor: 7 Essential Skills for Overcoming Life’s Inevitable Obstacles,” the authors, Andrew Shatte and Karen Reivich, point out the one skill to boost your resilience (how we respond to what happens to us) is to avoid “thinking traps.” [Read more…]

The focus of your attention creates your experience

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kevin-pokorny-leadership-focusLeaders must choose where to focus their attention. José Ortega y Gasset, a Spanish philosopher and essayist, said, “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” What leaders focus on expands in opening up or shutting down possibilities.

If leaders focus on weaknesses, the weaknesses expand. When leaders focus on ideas and behaviors they value, they grow.

What do you want to expand in opening up possibilities? Here are two examples. [Read more…]

Partner with the Midwest’s Pre-eminent Expert to Solve Your Toughest Workplace Challenge

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As a small business owner, HR executive, or a leader within your organization you face challenges every day.

  • Are you struggling to find the right strategy to meet your quarterly goals?
  • Do you want to develop emerging leaders within your company but aren’t sure how to go about it?
  •  Are you looking for an objective outsider to facilitate difficult discussions?

I have more than 20 years of consulting expertise that can help!!

As a master trainer, curriculum designer, consultant, facilitator, moderator, speaker and coach, I have helped a wide variety of clients deftly handle sensitive situations.

The secret to my success is that I am much more than a vendor to my clients… [Read more…]

What does luck have to do with business success?

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We all know what ROI means.  But, what about ROL?  Return on LUCK.  Jim Collins and Morten Hansen just released a new book called Great by Choice that examined entrepreneurs who built small businesses that outperformed their industries by a factor of 10.  They call them 10Xers, for “10 times success.”

Their research led them to the question, “Just what is the role of luck?”  To what degree did luck play in the success of the 10Xers?  How do you measure luck?  And, what about bad luck?

Collins and Hansen found “230 significant luck events” in their research.  What they found was that the 10X cases “weren’t generally ‘luckier’ than the comparison cases.”

What is told in the Sunday N.Y. Times story “What’s luck got to do with it?” is their study of how luck played out in several businesses, one of which is Microsoft and Bill Gates.  They contend Bill Gates was really lucky.  However, Gates’ choices he made at certain times in his life led him to success.  Choices that anyone else could have made, but didn’t. [Read more…]

Leaders – Let Go of Your Anchors!

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Let go of your anchors!

Let go of your anchors!

Ships have anchors to hold it in place.  Is the anchor useful?  Absolutely.  Without the anchor, the ship drifts aimlessly.  But what happens when the anchored ship is caught in a sudden storm?  If the ship’s crew doesn’t let the anchor go, the ship will be swamped by waves.  The crew cuts their ties to the anchor to ride out the storm in the sea.  “They needed to be free from what was normally a useful source of stability.  Their lives depended on it.”  So, the anchor can be an ASSET and a LIABILITY.  A paradox!

Individuals and organizations have their respective anchors that serve both as an asset and a liability.  As individuals, our systems of beliefs or “ego” are our anchors.  For organizations, anchors are imbedded in their culture or “ego.”  These anchors are sources of stability in how best to cope in our world. [Read more…]

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Pokorny Consulting
Des Moines, Iowa

Phone: (515) 205-5513