The Potentiality

John Horn's Website for Community Builders

Leadership

Three Reasons Why you Should have Guiding Principles

Most people would say they are principled if you ask them. But if you drill down a little more, many will have difficulty telling you what exactly their principles are. Asked when they consider them, you’ll get blank look and…

How We Will Realize Our Potential in 2020

Happy New Year! It’s the first day of 2020, which means that our team at The Potentiality is ready to engage in our tradition of publicly declaring bold goals for the year. Godfrey, Michael, Kurt and I are keen to…

Build your Giving Muscles

It’s Christmas Day, which is a holiday that is supposed to be synonymous with giving. More likely, if you’re celebrating Christmas today you will be experiencing something that Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant calls “matching” – this is when people give…

Sustainable Holiday Gift Ideas from The Potentiality

The holiday season is here and our team at The Potentiality is thrilled to share a couple of gift ideas, which is something that we do at this time of year, that inform and inspire your community building choices. Here…

Five Management Lessons from Coaching Youth Soccer

For the last few months I’ve been coaching my oldest son’s soccer team. He’s five years old and his teammates are around the same age. As you can imagine, the experience combines adorableness and fun with chaos and frustration. Weirdly…

Professional lessons from the Loudest Voice

The Loudest Voice is an HBO mini-series that charts the rise and fall of Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News. Played by Russell Crowe in heavy makeup, Ailes is depicted as a ruthless, creepy and strategically brilliant predator. The show…

Three Leadership Lessons from Succession

HBO’s hit drama Succession follows the Roy family as they squabble (and backstab) their way to the top of their father’s media empire Waystar Royco. Based loosely on the Murdoch family (with plenty of other business scion source material mixed…

Dear Vancity Interns…

Dear Vancity Interns (specifically those of you from the 2019 Community Leader Internship Program), Thank you, good luck with your next steps, and holy crap you are a talented group of human beings. Last Friday you completed your internship experience…

Three Ways to Instill Work Ethic in Kids

“Grandpa, what chores are we doing today?” is how my two kids started the second day of our vacation to my family home this summer. Sure, my oldest son works the land like most city kids do (with a lot…

Three Ways the 5AM Club is Making Me a Better Parent

Waking up early has long been a tenet of leadership guru Robin Sharma. In his recent book, The 5AM Club, he outlines tactics for making mornings active, focused and super productive – “own your morning, elevate your life” is a…