Leading for Results
The most important reason to be an effective leader is to help the group achieves its goals. Not for the status, or the power, but the results. So today, find…
Learning from Facebook executive departures
The departures of key executives from Facebook last week are the latest over the past 18 months. They highlight a number of key lessons in strategy and strategy implementation: Leaders…
Time to Clean House?
Computers get bogged-down over time as programs take more and more memory. Similarly, organization structures and processes get bogged-down by the ongoing addition of policies, procedures, and rules. Almost always…
How to Stop Circular Discussions about Decisions
One of the ways that meetings can be both frustrating and inefficient is when participants are faced with a situation and are going around and around debating alternative solutions. I’ve…
How to Improve Accountability
The word “accountability” can have a lot of negative connotations for people, including managers. In most cases, that’s because they either don’t understand accountability, or had a bad experience with…
The Art of Leadership
Last week I was in Chicago and visited the world’s largest and most respected maker of fine stringed instruments, William Harris Lee & Company. They make violins, cellos, and other…
Strategy and Growing Your Business
When I see a company year-after-year forecast sizable increases in revenues and profits and regularly miss the forecast I am reminded of Albert Einstein’s admonition about insanity: Doing the same…
Learning to Think Strategically
Newly-promoted executives face a number of significant challenges as they adapt to an executive role. One of the most significant is the ability to think strategically. In my 30 years…
Pay Attention to Key Management Processes
Innovation and continuous improvement keep operating processes efficient and effective, but too often management processes get neglected and they can cause significant problems during growth. What are management processes? Here…
Special Report: Retain Your Key People
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that employees are voluntarily quitting their jobs at the highest rate since the internet boom in 2001, and most of them are getting bigger…
When a Key Manager Isn't Cutting It
Having the right strategy and structure is good, but you need to make sure that you have the right key players in every important management position. Is each one capable…
Dramatically Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness — Part Two
I’ve been asked what key changes executives need to make in order to have a quantum leap in their effectiveness. What’s interesting about the question is that the answer has…
Essential Steps for a High Return on People
Most organizations devote a lot more time and money on weak performers than they do on top performers. They think that by investing in the lowest performing people, they will…
Sharpen the Focus on Results
Here is one of the most common, yet astounding, things that I see in organizations: Direct reports often aren't clear on what their jobs are. Yes, they are busy all…
What they may not be telling you
You need to make sure that the information you receive is not filtered. That can be more difficult than it seems. You have to make sure that your people understand…
Here's How to Set Priorities
You're the leader. That means you choose the music that everyone dances to. You need to be out in front and leading, providing direction and ideas that excite and motivate…
You Must Address Non-Performers
Make sure that non-performers or weak performers throughout your organization know where they stand. I read a Wall Street Journal article this weekend about the New York City School System…
Have More Time for Your Priorities
Here are three suggestions to significantly reduce demands on your time: Attract, develop, and retain really good people who report to you. This is very highest priority because direct reports…
Developing Young Management Talent
Build both accountability and managerial skills, especially in newly-promoted managers. Instead of asking a manager for detail on project progress, ask what he or she needs to do in his/her…
How to be an inspiring communicator
A common challenge of leaders is to become a better, more inspiring and energizing communicator. To do that, it helps to change your perspective on your business and to think…
Make Top Team Meetings Effective
Developing a highly-functioning top team is not easy. It takes the right combination of people, agreement on a clear direction, the ability to interact effectively, and a number of other…
A Great Time for Recognition
This is a good time of year to recognize exceptional performance of one or a few key individuals. Consider a lump-sum cash award, especially if you have someone who does…
Leadership: Your Mileage May Vary
When working with clients on implementing strategy, accelerating change, or improving performance, the actual results they achieve can vary greatly. Some clients make good steady progress while others grab ahold…
Making Relationships Productive
To be successful, managers and leaders need good relationships with their peers, subordinates and bosses. Yet, I usually see less-than-effective relationships when working with a leader. Often those relationships are…
The First Key to Exponential Growth
If you want exponential growth, you need to have a very clear picture of the business you want to have in the future: What will you be providing? Who will…
Harassment: What CEOs can do about it
The long-time Weinstein abuse and harassment was both widespread and known in the entertainment industry and beyond. It was an “open secret” that at least one major media outlet knew…
3 Key Elements of Teamwork
One of the most important factors in achieving high performance is teamwork. That’s true for two reasons: First, because organizations exist because their overall mission and goals require more than…
What leaders can learn from Wells Fargo, Uber, and Weinstein
Corporate culture is in the news due to the likes of Wells Fargo, Uber, and the Harvey Weinstein Company. CEOs, through their own behavior, set the values and the standards…
Is Your Strategy Sustainable?
Business strategy is all about having a distinctive position in your market, and making that distinctiveness sustainable. A distinctiveness that can be easily replicated is not a good strategy. Companies…
What's Your Niche?
To grow your business and improve profits stop thinking of your company as one of many competitors in a broad market, and define a narrower market niche to focus on.…
Operating at the CEO Level
The CEO has the responsibility to think strategically about the company and its business. This is a two-fold challenge: The first part is to extricate yourself from day-to-day tactics, problems…
Why You Need to "Think Different"
Exactly 20 years ago, Apple came up with a “Think Different” marketing theme. In part it was a rejoinder to IBM’s “Think,” but it resonated widely with businesses. It’s still…
Do Your Company Values Do Anything For You?
I’ve seen a lot of companies with fairly generic values posted in conference rooms and other work spaces. You know, values such as “Fairness,” “Teamwork,” and “Honesty.” While those are…
New Senior Leaders Must Change These to be Effective
These Have to Change When You Become an Executive Leader When a person is promoted to a leadership position as a CEO, COO, president, or senior executive there are three…
Top 7 Obstacles Getting in the Way of Your Strategy
Over the past 30 years, I've worked on strategy and strategy execution with the senior management of Fortune 1000 companies, mid-market companies, and Inc 5000 companies. In all that time,…
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
Professional race car drivers have their eyes well down the track in anticipation and readiness. So do the very best equestrians who immediately upon completing one jump will be looking…
Take a Lesson From The Beatles
In 1966, The Beatles decided not to tour or do live concerts anymore. They made the decision primarily because they did not feel they were growing, evolving. When they played…
When Development Stalls at the Top
The need to continually develop knowledge and skills is important throughout an organization. You've got to have people who are capable of handling new and bigger challenges in all aspects…
How's the Climate in Your Organization?
Back before culture surveys, attitude surveys, and engagement surveys, we used to have climate surveys, which were a way to measure the "climate" in an organization. I find it to…
Senior Management Incentives in the News
Strategic incentives are a good idea at the top. But getting everyone one in a large company on the same page is difficult, and it doesn't always work. Here are…
Are You Enabling Mediocrity in Your Organization?
Mediocrity is bad for a number of reasons. Workplaces that allow mediocrity also de-motivate high performers. And tolerating mediocrity reduces an organization's energy and productivity, as well as employee engagement…
Creating an Anticipatory Set
When something bad is about to happen, people will get tense. When beginning a competition, people will become focused. When preparing for a happy occasion, people will become relaxed. They…
Powerful Ideas to Improve Your Leadership
From many years of coaching executives, here are five pointers for becoming a better leader: Hire people who are better than you in their discipline; not subordinates. Focus yourself on…
Do This Before the End of February
It's February and you've got most of the year still ahead. See if you can answer these questions clearly and briefly: What is your strategy? What is the over-arching vision…
Three Imperatives of Profitable Growth
From over 30 years of working with organizations of all sizes and in many industries on improving business outcomes especially growth and profits: The most valuable part is having a…
What's Your Point?
Many people tell me that they like my On the Same Page emails because they are brief, to-the-point, and practical. I try to do the same thing when I speak.…
Observations From Southeast Asia
I've been immersed in different cultures for the past couple weeks in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Yangon, Myanmar. Some observations germane to leaders: These cultures are distinctly different, and based…
Turning Culture Into Competitive Advantage
Oops! In last Monday's email, I wrote that a 1000-foot runway (implementation plan) would be insufficient for a beautiful jet (corporate strategy) that requires a runway of 10,000 feet. At least…
Do You Have Enough Runway for Your Strategy?
My client called me to help improve company performance. The strategy they had developed was beautiful, like a new 747, capable of taking them where they wanted to go. The…
When Culture and Strategy Conflict
This one is simple: If strategy and culture go head-to-head, bet on the culture. Here's why: Too many leaders, especially those who are out to change a company's strategy, think…
I Don't Want to Hear "Hopefully"
The foundation of accountability is commitment. When one is committed to accomplishing something, the hesitation and fear are replaced by resolve and energy. When one is not committed, they tend…
Why You Need Your Own Best Practices
There are very, very few companies that have been great over a long time. It's as if they were able to assemble an organization, a strategy, a culture, and product/services…
5 Key Levers for Successful Strategy Execution
Most strategies fail to achieve their objectives, not because the strategies are faulty, but because the implementation is weak. It’s like building a beautiful jet airplane requiring 5000 feet to…
The One Thing Most Leaders Don't Know About Culture Change
When planning any sort of culture change, be aware that culture change often has an impact on customers and vendors. This is particularly true when making a strategic change in…
Ten Reasons Why Strategies Fail
There isn't a strategy. The strategy is distributed in 3-ring binders, everyone celebrates getting that done and thinks the strategy will implement itself. The strategy is actually an operations improvement…
How to Use Your People Time
Here's what works: Divide your workforce into three groups based on their performance: The top 20%, the middle 70%, and the bottom 10%. On which group do you spend most…
Improving Management Development
David Ogilve, the advertising guru, once noted that half the money spent on advertising is wasted; the problem being that no one knows which half. The same could be said…
When Poor Performance is Caused by the Boss
When analyzing a performance problem, I've found it often pays to look at the supervisor or manager and how they manage their people. Examples: Micromanaging Unclear or no accountabilities Weak…
How leaders' behaviors affect their people
Someone (I think it was Woody Allen) said that the role of the leader is to demonstrate how to act to his/her people. It's sound advice. The most admired leaders…
Escape Velocity for Cultural Gravity
Your company has a culture. It's the values and beliefs that cause certain behaviors. For example, if people are routinely late for meetings or if there is a stampede to…
Here's What Builds a High-Performance Team at the Top
If you want to build a high-performance team at the top, you've got to have managers who are professionally close. The big mistake many companies make is to dream-up "team"…
Take Less Action — And Get Better Results
Managers become quite adept at problem solving which involves taking action to bring performance back up to where it once was. You know the drill: An individual's performance declines, a…
The Key Difference Between Bureaucracy and High-Performance
Of the things high performers hate most, bureaucratic organizations are in second place (weak supervisors are first.) The key difference between bureaucracies and high-performance organizations is how they value both…
What Leaders Don't Know — But Should
Executives, and most of all, Chief Executives, need to be concerned about the information they are NOT hearing. There are many reasons why the information they get is filtered, even…
How to Spark Real, Dedicated Innovation
A strategic vision is, by far, the least appreciated element of strategy, yet it has the power to focus the strategy, energize innovation, and mobilize an entire organization. There are…
Apple's Values Drive Their Business — Do Yours?
I watched a Charlie Rose interview with Joni Ives last week. Ives is the now legendary head of design for Apple -- the guy who worked so closely with Steve…
What to do with a weak change sponsor
Successful organization change requires a number of factors. Perhaps the most important is sponsorship -- the clear and continual reinforcement of the change message by the top leader, and all…
Why Leaders Need Objective Feedback
An executive I began coaching shared a concern that people did not participate in meetings. When I sat in to observe, the problem was readily apparent: He would frequently interrupt…
Powering Employee Engagement
The ability to envision your company's future is important to formulating business strategy. Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else." It's also…
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 and implementation. Communicate strategy over…
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 is used, people management skills,…
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 considerably in their leadership and…
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 many ways to achieve significantly…
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 dramatis personae of a play,…
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 based on position, title, or…
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 compiled a list of 19…
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 incremental improvements -- that's what…
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, I know, finding out what…
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 the kind of people you…
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 work helping companies become more…
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 Technology Officer of the United…
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 work, and high-level opportunities to…
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 universal. What makes for an…
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 and acting like an owner…
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, and frozen veggies like peas,…
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 lots of activity, but what…
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 question for you: What are…
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 change, and more responsive when…
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 fail over and over again…
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 see it all the time:…
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 accountability as making people responsible…
How the best teams work
Many leaders today still subscribe to the idea that everyone reporting to them must conform to the leader's thoughts and opinions--both before decisions are made, and after. This slavish devotion…
The Wisdom of Giving Thanks
This is Thanksgiving week in the United States. It's a time to give thanks to your coworkers, your employees, your customers, and vendors. And especially to give thanks to your…
Changing the Micromanager
In the news last week were Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, and other former members of the Obama cabinet decrying the micromanagement that has characterized the administration's style. A micromanagement style…
Chances are you have only one of these two critical leadership skills
Excellent companies--those who excel for the long-term--are good at both the analytics of costs and efficiencies, and in improving their organization's ability to learn, innovate, and adapt to change. The…
The Key to Stop Micromanaging
Growing a business is not easy. The challenge is particularly acute for entrepreneurs who successfully launch a business, but soon find that the leadership style that got the business to…
The most important factor in successful organizational change
Most attempts at organization change fail. Even if the change is eventually successful, the cost is often far higher than necessary. Those costs include complaints from people who feel threatened,…
6 Ways Your Board Can Help Your Strategy Succeed
An important factor in implementing your strategy is getting your board involved. Yet many of the boards I work with spend way too much time on the past--reviewing operational updates…
The problem with improving innovation
For years I've helped companies improve innovation in a number of ways, and I continue to find that innovation itself is widely misunderstood. Innovation is how companies rapidly grow revenues…