Japanese chess

My latest for O’Reilly Media:

“As a leader, your every move is watched and your every word is measured for deeper meaning. That means it is easy to screw up an organization’s culture, even when you have the best of intentions. I recently spoke with the head of a large organization who remarked that he hadn’t realized how “loud” his voice became when he stepped into the top job. He told me that when he mentioned in passing that X sounded interesting, suddenly people were forming X teams and sending him reports on the future of X. He didn’t intend for all of that to happen, but when someone is in his position, people put a lot of weight on every word. He had to learn to be careful with everything he said and did.

This is an example of how executives often overestimate their control of culture yet underestimate their influence in it. What does that mean?”

For the answer, read the full post.