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Tagged with 'Jim Collin's'

Into the Heart of Love, Life, and Leadership (part 5 of 7)

Part 5 in a series: Let’s Be Frank about Spirit and Meaning (Links below to previous installments) The pinkish orange glow of the rising sun bathed the oak-paneled study in a warm light unlike any Frank had ever experienced. It pulsed with life. As the shimmering hues embraced him, Frank felt like his body dissolved […]

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Layoffs Rarely Pay Off: Here are 15 Alternatives

Your values are showing. Tough times are when the tide goes out to sea and exposes the jewels or junk that’s been under the surface. Words like, “our people are our most important resource” now prove to be empty rhetoric or compassionate reality. Leaders who care about people and building long-term trust, treat layoffs as […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm on… Ego

In his recent Globe & Mail column, “The Benefit of Silencing Our Own Egos,” Harvey Schachter writes, “Columbia University psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman observes on the Scientific American blog that media debates he watches these days want to make his head explode: ‘All our egos are just too damn loud.’ And those out-of-control egos we […]

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Charisma Confusion: It’s Often a Weakness and Humility a Strength

Is humility a key trait of highly effective leaders? Are charismatic leaders who can stir strong emotions more effective leaders? Questions about these intertwined leadership characteristics recently came up in workshops and online discussions. Charismatic leadership seems to especially confuse many people. It’s a popular media stereotype of strong leadership. As much as I enjoy […]

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Are You Creating an Employee Recommended Workplace?

Is work a four-letter word for many people on your team or in your organization? Is Monday morning the toughest time of their week? Are your team members mumbling “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go” as they trudge off to check into their “day prison?” Or do most members of your […]

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Good Companies Are Changing the World and Everyone Profits

In his 1990 book, Creative Work: The Constructive Role of Business in Transforming Society, Stanford’s Willis Harman wrote, “Business, the motor of our society, has the opportunity to be the new creative force on the planet, a force which could contribute to the well-being of many… the modern corporation is as adaptable an organizational form […]

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Review of “Firms of Endearment”

If the reason for a company’s existence is just profit, they won’t be very profitable. But if a company isn’t profitable, it won’t exist long enough to serve any other purpose. That’s what we call the purpose-profit paradox. Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose draws from an extensive research […]

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Overcoming The 7 Deadly Time Traps for Leaders

In a recent Leadership Team Retreat we used a survey based on 7 Deadly Time Traps for Leaders. The biggest trap this team fell into was Acceleration and Overload. This was closely followed by Reactive and Busyness and Coaching Skills. We agreed these three areas were intertwined. These were creating a growing sense of frantic […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm on…Organizational Culture (Part One)

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue … but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look … – Henry David Thoreau, American author, poet, and philosopher Before we can learn to lead, we must learn […]

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Six Different Pathways to Inspirational Leadership

A few months ago in Charismatic Leadership is Vastly Overrated I quoted from a European study published in Sloan Management Review on the downside of charisma. I also quoted Good to Great author, Jim Collins, reporting on his findings that charisma can be more of a leadership liability than an asset. Despite the mounting proof […]

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Charismatic Leadership Is Vastly Overrated

With last week’s death of the “Iron Lady,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, many world leaders and commentators looked back on her forceful and charismatic personality. Charismatic leadership is a popular media stereotype of strong leadership. As much as I’ve enjoyed reading Fortune magazine for the past few decades, they keep adding to this […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm on…Prophecies, Predictions, and Forecasts

“I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.” – Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), U.S. inventor “Economists, in particular, are treated with the reverence the ancient Greeks gave the Oracle of Delphi. But unlike the notoriously […]

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‘Tis the Season of Prophecies, Forecasts, and Predictions

We made it through yet another doomsday prediction! The world did not end on December 21 as some felt the Mayan calendar predicted. Around the world interest in survival pods, underground bunkers, and one-way tickets to “apocalypse safe havens” soared as D-Day approached. You should be able to pick up a Mayan calendar at half […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm on…Performance Excellence

Insights and inspiration as I attend Zenger Folkman’s Extraordinary Leadership Summit this week in Utah and the world watches the London Olympics: “The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he ‘gets for it,’ but what he ‘becomes by it'” – John Ruskin, 19th century English social thinker, philanthropist, artist, and writer We were […]

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Vote for the World’s Top Leadership Gurus

Last spring I was pleasantly surprised to be included in the World’s Top 30 Leadership Gurus for 2011. It’s an honor to be included with the leadership leaders who have inspired and taught me such as Warren Bennis, Tom Peter, Ken Blanchard, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, Marshall Goldsmith, and Rosebeth Moss Kanter. Voting is now […]

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Love is at the Heart of Strong Leadership

Looking beyond the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, it’s a great time to nurture our inner romantic and express gratitude for our loved ones. As I write I am listening to a randomized Beatles playlist. Of the nearly 200 songs on the list, “The Word” started playing as I began this blog post. Its opening lines […]

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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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Top 30 World’s Leadership Gurus: I am Honored to be in Such Company

I recently awoke to a pleasant surprise in my e-mail. I’ve been included on a list of the world’s "top 30 most influential leadership gurus." I am especially honored to be in the company of leaders that I’ve learned so much from, such as Warren Bennis, Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, Marshall […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm on… Leading Through Uncertainty

My last few blog posts dealt with our predictable New Year’s “Silly Season” filled with useless forecasts and predictions. This multi-billion dollar industry is built around our deep insecurity about dealing with uncertainty. But life doesn’t come with any guarantees and nobody knows what triumphs or tragedies await us around the next corner of our […]

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