Renaissance for Leaders

Exploring leadership & human performance

Author: Andrew John Harrison Page 2 of 55

Founder of Goldzone Group and the primary author of Renaissance for Leaders. Harrison's work focuses on the study of leadership and the conditions that shape human performance and decision-making.

The Secret to Boosting Productivity: Complete Your Cycles of Action

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On August 13, 2025

In Leadership & Influence

Most people underestimate the power of communication — and how it can spiral us up or drag us down.

It’s not just about the words we speak or hear. Communication is the exchange of ideas, knowledge, emotion, attention, and interest.

But here’s the problem:

We start things… and don’t finish them.

These incomplete cycles of action quietly drain our energy, scatter our focus, and keep us from being fully present.

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The Curse of Knowledge

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On September 13, 2024

In Leadership & Influence

The “curse of knowledge” is a Cognitive Bias where we learn something and have difficulty remembering what it was like not to know it!

As an engineer, I am used to absorbing technical information and understanding complex problems. Early in my career, I used to assume that everyone could do the same thing.

It was a rude shock to learn that many people struggle to grasp technical and complex information and that we can add value by making it simple.

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Strategy vs Tactics

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On September 5, 2024

In Leadership & Influence

Strategy vs tactics used to frustrate and confuse me until Jay Abraham explained it.

Jay helps business owners shift their mindsets to become more strategic thinkers and use innovation and marketing to grow their businesses.

Most of us struggle to understand the difference!

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The Mindset Continuum

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On August 1, 2024

In Leadership & Influence

Click on image to enlarge.

By James Anderson.

Based on the work of Carol Dweck.

The joy of forgiveness

Forgiveness Process

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On October 24, 2023

In Leadership & Influence

I wrote this process in my journal at 3:08 a.m. on Tuesday, September 4, 2018. You are welcome to use this to release yourself!

BEGIN

I release you from my life.

I allow you to move on from me.

Your lesson is your lesson. I fully accept my lesson, my creation.

I am not a victim. I am a co-creator.

I have at least 50% cause. I attracted you. You could not exist without me.

I allow myself to heal. I allow myself to flow. As I free myself, I also free you. I allow and release you to your own feelings, results, and lessons.

I surrender to universal and unconditional love.

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Personal finance: How to save, spend, and think rationally about money

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On June 13, 2023

In Money & Wealth

Whether you have a lot of money or debt, it matters how you handle your finances. A crucial step in saving is to reassess your relationship with money and learn to adopt a broader, more logical point of view. In this video, social innovator and activist Vicki Robin, psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, and author Bruce Feiler offer advice on achieving financial independence, learning to control your emotions, spending smarter, and teaching children about money. It all starts with education and understanding.

The more you know about how money works, the better you will be at avoiding mistakes and the easier it will be to take control of your financial circumstances.

Check Vicki Robin’s latest book, Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, at https://a.co/d/23a2Pjv

Flow | Animated Book Summary

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On June 10, 2023

In Leadership & Influence

The 8 Characteristics of Flow

Csikszentmihalyi describes eight characteristics of flow:

  1. Complete concentration on the task;
  2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
  3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
  4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
  5. Effortlessness and ease;
  6. There is a balance between challenge and skills;
  7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
  8. There is a feeling of control over the task.

How Apple Is Organized for Innovation: Leadership at Scale

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On June 9, 2023

In Business & Entrepreneurship

This is part 3 of 3.

Part 1: The Functional Organization

Part 2: The Leadership Model

Deciding how to organize areas of expertise to best enable collaboration and rapid decision-making has been an important responsibility of the CEO.

The adjustments Tim Cook has implemented in recent years include dividing the hardware function into hardware engineering and hardware technologies; adding artificial intelligence and machine learning as a functional area; and moving the human interface out of software to merge it with industrial design, creating an integrated design function. Based on the HBR article, “How Apple Is Organized for Innovation” by Joel M. Podolny and Morten T. Hansen:

https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-…

How Apple Is Organized for Innovation: The Leadership Model

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On June 8, 2023

In Business & Entrepreneurship

This is part 2 of 3.

Part 1: The Functional Organization

Part 3: Leadership at Scale

Ever since Steve Jobs implemented the functional organization, Apple’s managers at every level, from the senior vice president on down, have been expected to possess three key leadership characteristics: deep expertise that allows them to meaningfully engage in all the work being done within their individual functions; immersion in the details of those functions; and a willingness to collaboratively debate other functions during collective decision-making.

When managers have these attributes, decisions are made in a coordinated fashion by the people most qualified to make them. Based on the HBR article, “How Apple Is Organized for Innovation” by Joel M. Podolny and Morten T. Hansen:

https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-…

How Apple Is Organized for Innovation: The Functional Organization

By

On June 7, 2023

In Business & Entrepreneurship

This is part 1 of 3.

Part 2: The Leadership Model

Part 3: Leadership at Scale

Adopting a functional structure may have been unsurprising for a company of Apple’s size at the time. What is surprising—in fact, remarkable—is that Apple retains it today, even though the company is nearly 40 times as large in terms of revenue and far more complex than it was in 1998. Senior vice presidents are in charge of functions, not products.

As was the case with Jobs before him, CEO Tim Cook occupies the only position on the organizational chart where the design, engineering, operations, marketing, and retail of any of Apple’s main products meet.

Besides the CEO, the company operates with no conventional general managers: people who control an entire process from product development through sales and are judged according to a P&L statement. Based on the HBR article, “How Apple Is Organized for Innovation” by Joel M. Podolny and Morten T. Hansen:

https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-…

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