What Google Taught Me About Personal Communication

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking in the Leading@Google series at the company’s storied Mountain view campus. It is a remarkable place. Yes, the food is amazing, and it’s everywhere (you are always within 100 feet of free, fantastic fare). Yes, the surfaces are ecologically sound and the use of Read More

Sports: The Language of Connection

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

The sporting world abounds this time of year, and I’m deep into it. The baseball season is underway and it’s the intoxicating time of NHL and NBA playoffs (in which my home teams, from Philadephia, are represented). Two days ago I was in New York, presenting to a group of 300 executives at ESPN’s Women’s Read More

Overcome Your Fear of Trying Something New

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

In a recent Fortune interview, Google co-founder Larry Page discussed his company’s early days: “You have this fear of failing and of doing something new, which is very natural. In order to do stuff that matters, you need to overcome that.” When it comes to creating new ways of getting work done to improve performance Read More

Leadership on The Wire

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

Popular culture can be a great source of material for lessons about leadership and the daunting challenge of creating meaningful, sustainable change in organizations and society–and it can provide a way to connect work, home, community, and self. For example, in the first meeting of my leadership and teamwork course in Wharton’s MBA program this Read More

A More Holistic Approach to Problem Solving

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

When you’re stuck on a problem, it often helps to step back and look at the bigger picture. You see things differently and discover new solutions. What I ask participants in my Total Leadership program to do is take the “four-way-view” – the interaction among work, home, community, and self – and come up with Read More

The First Step to a Richer Life

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

Did you know that having lunch with a new colleague at work every week can improve your marriage and make you a better citizen? Or that writing a novel can make you a more productive, committed IT director and a better father? These are just a couple of the thousands of examples I’ve seen of Read More

Don’t Leave Your Personal Life at Home

by Stew Friedman in Stew Friedman's Blog

You’re not paying attention to your family, your community, your private self? All you have time for is your career? You’re making a big mistake. How things are going at home, in your community, and in your interior life all influence whether you perform well at work. Over 20 years of research and practice on  Read More