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Do You Need a Few Courageous Conversations?

May you enjoy a Moose-free Holiday Season! Moose-on-the-table is a concept I’ve written about extensively such as in my “edutaining” fictional book by that title. Around the world I’ve facilitated management teams having courageous conversations about elephants in the room, and kangaroos or camels on the table. The original concept comes from families with significant […]

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Giving the Gift of Encouragement and Support

‘Tis the season of gifts and giving. The warmth and good cheer of the Holiday Season is often the reminder we need of how giving and helping others can really help us too. George Burton Adams, an early 20th century American educator and historian once observed, “Note how good you feel after you have encouraged […]

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Harnessing the Power of Participation

There’s another excellent article in this month’s Harvard Business Review on harnessing the power of highly engaged people. Professor of leadership, Douglas Ready, and PhD student, Emily Truelove, report on how companies like the beauty retailer Sephora, luxury hotel chain Four Seasons, and French food giant Danone, came through hard times stronger than ever. In […]

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Are You Using All Your Strength?

The cover article in the December issue of Harvard Business Review reminded me of this powerful little story: A scout leader was trying to lift a fallen tree from the path. His pack gathered around to watch him struggle. “Are you using all your strength?” one of the scouts asked. “Yes!” was the exhausted and […]

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What’s Your Me/We Ratio?

Fellow professional speaker and good friend, Donald Cooper, makes this excellent point in his December newsletter: “In many conversations with business owners and their teams I’ve been amazed and distressed at how many business owners use ‘I’ and ‘my’ when they should be using “we” and “our”. They constantly say, ‘I did this and I […]

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Archived Webinar on Our Leadership and Culture Development Approaches Now Available

Last week’s follow up leadership and culture development webinar is now available for you to review. The session outlined our implementation steps, approaches, and Client examples for leadership, organization, and culture development. Building on my Leading a Peak Performance Culture webcast (click on the title to view it) this webinar starts with a 35 minute […]

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Traditions, Culture, and Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss

What? It’s the last month of the year already! What happened to 2011? When I was a kid I’d snicker when I heard adults talk about how fast time goes by. I couldn’t wait until I was taller, could drive a car, get a job, get out on my own…Time dragged at a frustrating crawl. […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm on…”Great by Choice”

Selections from Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck — Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen:  “We cannot predict the future. But we can create it…we can be astonished, confounded, shocked, stunned, delighted, or terrified, but rarely prescient … life is uncertain, the future unknown. This is neither good […]

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Book Review: “Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All”

This is a very timely, inspiring, and practical book for leading in turbulent times. It’s the culmination of a nine year research project that began in 2002 “in the aftermath of 9/11 and the bursting stock bubble, watching the exponential rise of global competition and the relentless onslaught of technological disruption, hearing the rising chant […]

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Shared Secrets from the Cirque

If you’ve never taken in one of the amazing and spectacular shows of the Cirque du Soleil, you really need to treat yourself and see one. Cirque travels extensively to major cities and have permanent shows with elaborate stages and buildings in Las Vegas. One of my favorite shows of all time is their The […]

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Culture Transformation for Thriving in Permanent White Water

I was just talking with a CEO Client about the development work we’ve been doing with his team. This led to a discussion about the state of our businesses. His company is doing fairly well during these uncertain times. He asked about our business. I told him that we saw many organizations cut back sharply […]

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Is Your Culture by Default or by Design?

We’re continuing to get feedback, questions, and comments about culture development following my 60 minute webcast on November 4. If you missed the whirlwind “city bus tour,” you can view the archived presentation (my animated slides synchronized with the audio track) at Leading a Peak Performance Culture. One viewer sent me a good question after […]

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Links for Digging Deeper Into Leading a Peak Performance Culture

My last blog post announced that you can now view last Friday’s (November 4) full Leading a Peak Performance Culture webcast with all slides and audio track. You might want to view (or review) the session on your own or share it with your management team and/or improvement professionals concerned with leadership and culture development. […]

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Leading a Peak Performance Culture Archived Webcast Now Available

Last Friday (November 4) I delivered a very fast paced and information packed 60 minute presentation by webcast. My goal was “culture change in an hour!” I tried to stuff the major learning from our thirty years of working with hundreds of organizations and the latest research on culture change into 60 minutes. We had […]

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Exponential Engagement: The Power of Three

In today’s economic uncertainty employee engagement is critical. Organizational engagement surveys are showing that employee frustration is accelerating as engagement plummets. They feel trapped. With higher unemployment rates and tight job markets, many people on the frontlines — especially those with less specialized skills — are clinging to jobs they don’t enjoy. Employee engagement is […]

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Points to Ponder on Being an Acorn or Decaying Sheep

This month’s November illustration shows pigs feeding on an autumn harvest of acorns. This medieval European scene continues today in large oak groves of Spain and Portugal. A 14th century English proverb states, November, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry “Large streams from little foundations flow and tall oaks from little acorns […]

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Thoughts that Make You Go Hmmm on…. Leading Culture Change

Here are especially vital findings and powerful observations about just what it takes to build a peak performance culture. These are drawn from Harvard Business School professor, James Heskett’s new book, The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force That Transforms Performance: “Culture really matters. As Lou Gerstner wrote, reflecting on his experiences in […]

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Book Review of “The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force that Transforms Performance”

John Kotter and James Heskett’s classic book, Corporate Culture and Performance, is an organization development classic. The book provided solid evidence of the payoffs that come from adaptive cultures and the negative power of unadaptive cultures. Adaptability is absolutely critical today. As change tsunamis relentlessly sweep the globe, adaptive organizations are getting stronger and unadaptive […]

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Change Choices: Creating Our Own Reality

The short video clip Lost Generation continues to be a big hit with keynote and workshop audiences as we discuss our choices to Lead, Follow, or Wallow when faced with challenging changes or setbacks. It features a poem written by Jonathon Reed for a “U @ 50” contest sponsored by the American Association of Retired […]

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When to Work on Weaknesses

It was an eerie coincidence! Maybe it’s because Halloween is about to pounce on us … I had just read my old colleague Jack Zenger, and his colleagues Joe Folkman and Scott Edinger’s excellent article in this month’s issue of Harvard Business Review. Entitled “Making Yourself Indispensible”, the article builds on the strong research and […]

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