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Turning Potential Into Results

Stop Putting up with the Glare

By Camille Smith / July 7, 2015

Client story: An employee wanted to move to another workspace because the extreme glare on her desk made it hard for her to work. She was convinced that the glare was coming from a newly painted office building outside her window. To try and solve the problem herself, she put a row of plants on…

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Jack and the OpportunityStalk

By Camille Smith / May 21, 2015

Ding-Dong Every now and then, we get unwanted solicitations at home – magnets advertising tree cutting services tossed on our driveway, pamphlets promising salvation slipped under our mat, volunteers ringing the bell requesting a donation. We toss the ads in the trash and flip a coin to determine if we’ll answer the door. A recent…

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Got complaints? Replace whines with action!

By Camille Smith / April 14, 2015

When a friend’s birthday approaches, I sort through my stash of cards for one that’s appropriate. For the last 6 years (OK, maybe 10), I’ve rejected the same 5 birthday cards. What I thought was funny when I bought them, isn’t funny anymore. The cards in the No pile include an old gal hiking up…

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Illusions are too cool, until they turn too costly

By Camille Smith / March 12, 2015

Optical illusions are a hoot. They work by taking advantage of how our brain’s hard-wiring processes information. Recently, a photograph of a bride’s dress posted online went viral along with the question: Is the dress White and Gold or Blue and Black? Those in the W&G camp are adamant that they are right, just as…

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7 Steps to Effective Delegation

By Camille Smith / February 6, 2015

Fess up: Do you delegate or drop-off?  Dropping-off.  We ask others to do stuff for us all the time – stuff we don’t want to do, don’t have the time to do, and couldn’t do even if we had the time.  We drop our suits off for pressing (a task we can’t do), our car…

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Resolutions? Bah, humbug!

By Camille Smith / January 27, 2015

Looking back If you haven’t made your New Year’s resolutions yet, or, probably more likely, the one’s you’ve made have fallen away, it’s ok. In fact, it’s better than ok … read on.In my December 2013 blog, I declared “releasing” as my one-word intention for 2014. I put it on a card and stuck it…

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The Problem with Thinking … Only Certain Thoughts

By Camille Smith / December 9, 2014

I just finished reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Regardless of the mixed reviews of the Pulitzer Prize winner, I loved it. The last 10 pages got me thinking about thinking. One phrase in particular gave birth to this blog: “… just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them”. The ‘not…

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Ostrich-ize your Leadership

By Camille Smith / November 16, 2014

When someone’s ignoring what we think they ought to pay attention to, we chastise them with: “Don’t be an ostrich and stick your head in the sand!” Well, add one more thing to the list of the stuff we believe that isn’t true. This past summer, I visited the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch outside Red…

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Drink up to improve your performance!

By Camille Smith / October 16, 2014

“Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” So says the speaker in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner remarking about a sailor on a becalmed ship surrounded by salt water that he cannot drink. By extension, these lines are used to describe a situation in which someone is in the midst of plenty…

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School’s Always In for Leaders

By Camille Smith / September 19, 2014

It’s Fall. School’s back in session. I’m taking an online class in strategic planning. Ordered my used books from half.com and downloaded my ebooks. (I’ll see if I can resist printing them.) With pencil and highlighter in hand, I opened HBReview’s “On Strategy” to read my first assignment. When I got to page 5, yellow…

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