Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen: How to Face Hard Muffins and Hard Situations
Let’s talk about muffins – blueberry muffins, banana nut muffins, apple muffins – and the thud they make as they hit the compost bin, since these particular muffins are rock hard. I should back up. I left the Ivy League for culinary school years ago to become a chef. During my nine years as a […]
Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen: What Mother’s Day Brunch Can Teach Us About Teamwork
Today, I’d like you to join me at brunch, my favorite meal. Before you start salivating over the idea of a Croque Monsieur, I should tell you that you’ll be joining me in the kitchen. Not just any kitchen—the kitchen of a busy restaurant. If you’ve been reading my series on leadership lessons I learned […]
Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen: How to Prevent Difficult Communication from Burning Your Fingers
I would never have guessed at the time, but leaving the Ivy League to go to culinary school gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about leadership. I recently shared four of the lessons I learned as a chef and the response was overwhelming. Since my lessons seem to have hit a nerve, I […]
What is Your Definition of Success?
I once heard Arianna Huffington say that it’s time to stop bragging about how many hours we work, and how exhausted we are. She believes it’s time to redefine success*, taking it beyond money and power, to include well-being, wisdom and wonder. I couldn’t agree more with this definition of success. Success to me is […]
How to Merge Creativity and Business
Business is so much more than ROI and numbers. It is also about creativity and compassion. The truth is, you cannot run a successful business if you are not creative. Bringing creativity into your leadership is more than just supplying the Playdough at a company retreat. It is about fostering innovation and allowing mistakes to […]
Four Leadership Lessons from the Kitchen
I dropped out of the Ivy League to go to culinary school. This might not be so bad, except for the fact that my family is steeped in academia, with various relatives teaching at both Cornell University and Georgetown University. So you can imagine my parents’ reaction when I said I wanted to drop out […]
Get Set to Write Your Own Business Story
It’s time for the annual company summit. Team building activities, community service projects, a delicious formal dinner, and surprising entertainment has been planned. Now it’s time to think about your keynote speech. As CEO, you take pride in recognizing those who work hard to grow your business, so you decide to focus on an important […]
How to Get Better at Corporate Storytelling
If you’re a leader looking to strengthen company culture, provide inspiration, and define organizational values, corporate storytelling is the perfect modality for you. Stories engage your team members on a mental level (with charts, graphs and lists of facts), and on an emotional and spiritual level as well. In fact, the impact of storytelling isn’t arbitrary. […]
Corporate Storytelling – Learn the Science, Capture the Power, Make an Impact
The Book Thief, a film directed by John Lee Hancock, mesmerized me from the start. The story recounts how words and books transformed Liesel’s world during and after the horrors of WWII. I am known for being unable to sit still for more than 45 minutes, yet this story kept me spellbound until the lights […]
It’s Story Time: Corporate Storytelling Brings Results
I have a secret to tell you: I LOVE storytelling nights. It’s like glimpsing eight different worlds in the span of a few hours, leaving me with memories, laughs, lingering questions and tears. The power of storytellers sharing their lives with the audience cannot be underestimated. The same power can be brought to your business […]
