Year: 2015

How Great Leaders Navigate Strategy

Here is a list of what my best clients do: Understand that your commitment to the strategy is on the line everyday. Lead strategy formulation

Should You Fit the Job to the Person, or the Person to the Job?

When I work with a client on organization structure, the question often comes up: “Should we design the job around the person we have, or

Executives vs. Managers

In my consulting and coaching, I usually see clear distinctions between upper and lower levels of management on a number of factors including how time

How exceptional leaders listen

I’ve met, observed, and worked with hundreds of leaders — only a couple dozen or so who I’ve considered to be extraordinary. While they’ve differed

Do your people talk about results — or activities?

During the many years I’ve been working with companies, the characteristics of high-performing and ineffective organizations is stark. In high-performing companies, people talk about the

How to Get Your Organization On the Same Page

This newsletter is entitled “On the Same Page.” It can refer to many things including an orchestra whose members are following the score, or the

How to Achieve Leadership Power and Influence

If you want to establish strong leadership power and influence, learn what it means to establish “referent” power. It is far more effective than power

Strategies to Accelerate Company Growth

To dramatically grow your business, you’ve got to execute. Even it you’ve got a great strategy, how it is executed makes all the difference. I’ve

Executive Game-Changers

Over my career I’ve worked with at least a thousand executives, including hundreds of CEOs and presidents. The best ones aren’t so concerned with making

Making Conflict Productive

Think about it…when people are in conflict they are stimulated, passionate, and energized. That’s what you want — not passive harmony and predictable routines. Instead

Employee Engagement is a Byproduct

Just like productivity, quality and employee retention, Employee engagement is an end result, a byproduct, of doing a number of things right. Instead of acting

If You Really Want to Stop Being a Micromanager, Do These

Lately, I’ve worked with a several leaders who admit that they micromanage and want to stop. The problem is that they don’t know how to

3 Signs of a Successful Strategic Planning Process

Of course increased revenue, profits, and market share are the real outcomes, but here are three ways you can tell if your organization is focused

For Best Organizational Performance, Don't Benchmark

Benchmarking is a tried-and-true approach for operational processes, but it should not be used to determine how best to structure or lead an organization. Yeah,

From Micromanager to Effective Leader

When people are micro-managed, they become self-conscious, intimidated, mistake avoiding, and fearful. They wait for orders, subdue their creativity, and rarely make suggestions. That’s not

Support Your People

I’ve seen managers and executives who seem to be obsessed with looking for what their people are doing wrong or mistakes they’ve made. And I’ve

Restructuring? More Ideas for Success

Last week I wrote about key elements of restructuring. Here are a few more practical tips from my years of working with scores of organizations

Practical Tips for Successful Organization Restructuring

Practical Tips for Successful Organization Restructuring If you’re doing an acquisition, merging, wanting to be more market or customer-focused, or restructuring to cut costs, the

3 Keys to Increasing Innovation

There’s a lot of talk about innovation these days. Much of it is academic and lacks practical application. Here are three important tactics from my

My Takeaways From Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of U.S.

Last week I attended M.I.T’s graduation to see my son receive his Ph.D. in Aeronautic and Astronautic Engineering. The guest speaker was Megan Smith, Chief

Make Your Strategy Sessions More Engaging

Strategy should be exciting, challenging, and stimulating. It should elicit the very best thinking of your key people, get the creative juices flowing, build enthusiasm,

How Strategic Planning is Changing

Gone are the days of big binders with detailed projections, economic analyses, and all the other stuff that is old even before it is put

Culture Change: What Works…and What Doesn't

I am working with three companies on their cultures, and regularly find misconceptions about what it takes to change or strengthen corporate culture. Additionally, while

Practical Gems From Excellent Leaders

From my observations over 30 years of consulting, coaching, and executive work: The best leaders know that people respond to excellent managers, challenging and stimulating

Are You An Effective Communicator?

90% of managers believe they are good or excellent communicators, while the people they’re leading put that number at about 20%. That is pretty much

Weak Company Performance and Great Employee Reviews

My most successful clients are very good at aligning individual goals with strategic intent so that everybody is actively working to achieve the company’s strategy

Cultivate Leadership Talent

My wife has a large garden which produces an abundance of vegetables we eat throughout the year — we still have garlic, beans, hot peppers,

Emphasize results, not deliverables

I don’t know where this came from, but I hear way too many people talking about deliverables. Maybe it’s because a deliverable is better than

What are your obstacles to growth?

What obstacles are in your growth path? Most of my clients are pushing hard for growth right now. If that’s you too, I have one

Those Self-Correcting Problems

Back in my college days I used to hitchhike the 300 miles to school. One day I hitched a ride with a couple. Enroute, the

Do Values Matter?

There is a great story about Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines where “Fun” is one of the primary values. Apparently a customer didn’t like that

Autocratic vs Self-Managed Teams

The next time you form a team, consider this: While both supervisor-led teams and self-managed teams can be just as productive, there is a one

When You Need to Change People's Behaviors

When working with leaders to change people’s behaviors, I’ve found the most effective approach is to appeal to rational self-interest and use carrots rather than

The Payoff of a Learning Organization

We learn steadily, every day. And good companies do too. The best companies have hundreds or thousands of employees gaining more knowledge and working better

You'll Never Get Commitment Using Logic

In response to one of my recent emails concerning commitment, several clients asked, “So what are the leadership steps to getting commitment?” Here’s one of

Strategic Planning is Rapidly Changing

Long gone are the thick binders GE used decades ago to create detailed plans for the next five years. Even the approaches pioneered in the

Getting More In-Tune With External Changes

One of the highest concerns of presidents I talk with these days is how to create an organization that is more proactive in sensing external

Consensus Is Not Commitment

Getting consensus is good — but commitment is essential. I have seen leaders who spend all their time getting their team to reach consensus, but

The #1 Problem in Leadership Development

It’s the fallacy that if someone understands the theory, or the practice, or simply what to do, that he or she will do it. We

The Best Answer to "What's Your Strategy?"

I like to ask CEOs what their business strategy is. Sometimes I get a crisp, clear response, but often the answer either is a bunch

The Essence of Building Accountability

Instilling accountability is very important. It is the fast track to commitment, performance, and people development. Unfortunately, way too many leaders, managers, and supervisors see