Growing up in Minnesota, a.k.a. the Land of 10,000 Lakes, a fair amount of my childhood was spent on the water. We’d go swimming, boating, and my favorite - canoeing. As a kid, I’d jump in the canoe and take a seat; as the youngest, I was often seated in the middle of the canoe. While this position didn’t require that I paddle, my enthusiasm had me do so anyway as I wanted to participate in our progress. As a youngster, I wasn’t always focused and at times, I was rowing in the opposite direction! My energy was being wasted instead of moving our boat forward. I was dragging my team down because my efforts were not aligned with where we were going.

Nobody talks about the elephant in the room. It’s too uncomfortable. “It’s too embarrassing,” you think, “If I bring that subject up, then everyone will know about it.” But here’s the thing – people know about the elephant in the room, and ignoring it is causing more problems than it’s solving.

Great managers are hard to find. Great managers have a true gift and a passion for getting the most out of people. Great managers possess a unique ability that is not in everyone. Having worked with hundreds of managers over the years, I now see clearly the ones who truly want to be great managers and the ones who are doing it for other reasons, e.g., ego, advancement, having nowhere else to go.

I’ve noticed a pattern this year across several good teams that have truly become great teams. Conversely, there are other teams that just remain mediocre. Why is that? It all comes down to having a great Integrator in place who owns their role.

In any entrepreneurial organization, two essential seats are the Visionary and the Integrator™. A great Visionary is driven by creativity and passion, which fuels his or her vision for the company. A great Integrator takes that vision and makes it happen throughout the organization. Without these two leaders working side by side, your company will never see the success it’s capable of achieving.

From time to time, I have clients ask me if I can do anything to help them with personal time management. Typically, they have put too much on their plate and they can't figure out how to get everything done. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years as I transitioned from a poor time manager to a more effective time manager: There's a big difference between time management and effective time management.

For many of us, time management boils down to managing our to-do lists – trying to get more done and checking it off our lists within prescribed deadlines. But doing more doesn't mean we are achieving what we want.