Happy Holidays

Whether you are celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas, or simply some time off at the end of a wild year (my family is celebrating all 3), my wish for each of you is for you to have some time to do whatever makes you feel good. This week and next have a tendency to be both slower and faster. Slower in that many business schedules are limited, even though there is work that needs to be completed to close out the year. And faster in that the activity schedule with family and friends often hits full, exhausting speed (though we’ll see how the pandemic affects that dynamic for each of us).

So whatever you need – be it time with family, time alone, being in nature, savoring your favorite holiday food, cheering for your team, reading a good book, watching a movie you always enjoy, getting restful sleep – I hope that you have your fair portion of it in the week(s) ahead.

The Most Important Leadership Job - Parent.

One of the editors I work with at HBR contacted me earlier this year about applying some of the principles of 360 degree leadership feedback to parenting. That article was just published in Harvard Business Review’s Managing Your Career (Working Parents Edition.) The print version has a bit more color on the feedback experiment I did with my own kids but there is a short version of the article available here, Learn to Solicit Feedback…From Your Kids.

When it comes to leadership, I’ve always said that if you want to know how to lead, ask those who are led. For those of you with children, if you want to know how you can be a better parent, ask your kids.

If You Are Looking For Something To Watch During The Holidays…

I’ll suggest My Octopus Teacher, available on Netflix. It was recommended to me by a good friend and I knew it was a winner when my wife, 9- and 16-year-old kids and I watched the hour and a half long film and no one reached for a phone or device to look for something else. It’s a documentary, so some may think it’s boring based on that alone, but we watched it Thanksgiving weekend and found it mesmerizing. For me, it was a combination of visual, audio, and emotional beauty. If you watch it or have already have, I’m curious what you think of it. Let me know. 

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