CategoryLeadership

Light vs Dark

By Josh Nicholls
8 months ago
3 Min Read
In Leadership
L

I am a deep believer in principle based leadership and decision making. There is no set of processes or approaches that can deal with every single context, but principles can guide our thinking and help us make wiser and better decisions.

For nearly 12 years at Microsoft I was looking for and seeking to discover the principles by which teams, business units, or entire organizations within Microsoft built sustaining impact. There is no one principle that fixes everything, but I have boiled down 12 years of observation into a simple four world principle. 

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It’s Urgent, Slow Down

By Josh Nicholls
July 28, 2023
2 Min Read
In Leadership
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Earlier this month I had a conversation with Simon Lamb who is a dear friend of mine and brilliant thinker. He pushes me to do better and be better.

We were both discussing our need to focus on family and other things beyond our work. We talked in the context of the famous 2×2 matrix of urgent and important made popular by Steven Covey and we realized that today, that matrix doesn’t serve us as well. The pace of change and the speed at which we are demanded to get things done is dramatically different than it was in the 80’s. There are more things that are urgent and important so that quadrant is being filled with fewer and fewer urgent and not important items.

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Shared Leadership

By Josh Nicholls
July 25, 2023
2 Min Read
In Leadership
S

Recently I went rappelling with a large group and I observed some interesting archetypes of leadership. Specifically, what it looks like to share leadership. 

Our repelling expedition, if you can call it that, consisted of a group of 25 people. Most of which were novices or had never been rappelling before. I am in the novice group. As we spent time together it was fascinating to witness clear leadership roles come out.

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Increasing Confidence

By Josh Nicholls
July 20, 2023
2 Min Read
In Leadership
I

I’ve been thinking about confidence and how one can build confidence. There is a lot to learn in this space and I found something that feels durable and has given me a practical way to think about building my own confidence.

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Pattern for Growth

By Josh Nicholls
June 30, 2023
1 Min Read
In Leadership
P

If you have followed my posts for any amount of time you know I’m a visual learner and I like patterns. There is a pattern for growth that I’m working through that has felt durable and I’d love your thoughts and reactions.

The patterns looks like this:

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Precision vs Power

By Josh Nicholls
June 23, 2023
2 Min Read
In Leadership
P

A few weeks ago, I learned of something that intuitively makes sense but caused me to reflect.

In the context of AI you have two tensions at play. You have precision and you have power. If you want a chatbot AI (like ChatGPT or BingChat) to be precise and accurate all of the time then you have to sacrifice some of the potential power to get the repeatability.

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Fire Bullets Then Cannonballs

By Josh Nicholls
June 21, 2023
3 Min Read
In Leadership
F

My six-year-old daughter is a gem, she is adorable, expressive, loving, fierce, loyal, and kind. She is also stubborn as all get out and knows exactly how to push my buttons as a father.

For over a year I’ve been trying to figure out how I can be a better dad and nurture my six-year-old. I’ve tried many small experiments and most lead to me getting frustrated or triggered when she’s in the mood to push my buttons.

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About Me

Josh Nicholls

I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo

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