Last week’s 55 minute archived webcast on Leadership and Culture Development for Higher Health and Safety is now available. During the webcast I covered: Defining Culture Organizational Culture and Safety Performance Fatal Five Failure Factors Culture Transformation Pathways Key Implementation Steps Click on Leadership and Culture Development for Higher Health and Safety to access the […]
Read post »Sometimes it feels like our technology picks the toughest time to test us! I was on the Calgary leg of a road trip to Regina, Calgary, Seattle, and Anchorage a few weeks ago when my computer failed to boot up as I arrived at my hotel room that night. I live on this thing. I […]
Read post »Just after writing my last blog on improving customer service by treating your employees better I came across an interview on Jim Bush, EVP of World Service, at American Express. The new leadership approach Jim describes Amex has used since he took charge of this role in 2005 provides powerful data and examples of how […]
Read post »This is the title of a recent report in the University of Pennsylvania newsletter Knowledge @ Wharton. Part of the article reports on “a recent study conducted by Marshall Fisher, a professor of operations and information management at Wharton, and other colleagues.” He goes on to show how one of the keys to improving customer […]
Read post »As I fine tuned my Leadership and Culture Development for Higher Health and Safety webcast presentation, I’ve been reflecting on the lessons learned from the quality movement and the widespread failure to apply those to workplace safety. Starting in the late eighties and eventually morphing into Lean/Six Sigma, the quality movement completely revolutionized management thinking […]
Read post »In preparation for an offsite executive team retreat, the executive organizing the session sent me a draft of the mission and vision statements “we’ve been struggling with.” She included earlier versions and iterations of each statement. She was especially frustrated and confused by the overlap of the two. She was looking for my help to […]
Read post »I recently ran a Moose-on-the-Table workshop for a major division of a large company going through the wrenching change of a wholesale restructuring and totally refocusing their business. Our session centered on fostering Courageous Conversations because their history of not addressing tough issues with each other was a major reason this division ran itself into […]
Read post »There’s a lot of mumbo jumbo being sold by “generational experts” that today’s young workers are very different from previous generations and need to be managed differently. Clearly there are differences between groups of people who grew up in different times, circumstances, and cultures. But people are people. And what we’re looking for from our […]
Read post »The month of May is thought to have been named for the Greek goddess Maia. In ancient Roman lore she was identified with fertility, considered an earth goddess, and embodied the concept of growth. On the farm where I grew up, May was an extremely busy month in the fields. There was a short window […]
Read post »Last month I posted a blog on Use This 10 Point Checklist for a Leadership Check Up. This was developed as I prepared for this year’s only open/public Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop here in the center of the universe – my hometown of Kitchener, Ontario (just 45 minutes west of Toronto airport). […]
Read post »Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman ignited a firestorm of interest and debate with their March Harvard Business Review blog post Are Women Better Leaders than Men? Based on a recent survey of 7,280 leaders the study reinforced some long held beliefs and uncovered a few surprises in the gender debate. They did confirm that 2/3 […]
Read post »In the past few months I’ve been asked by workshop participants and readers for my recommendations on organization improvement, leadership, or personal development books. One example was an e-mail from a manager at the American Society of Training and Development: “We are building our reference list for the ASTD Forum Lab in India in October. […]
Read post »Toronto-based Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) has just released an excellent new “Career GPS” tool. This online assessment is designed to help HR professionals pinpoint and track their professional development goals. But the first six of eight Domains provides a very useful summary and checklist of the critical “soft skills” everyone in a management position […]
Read post »Here are a few insights drawn from The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate: “Adequate leaders get everyone to do their jobs, but inspirational leaders are able to get people to rise far above that mark and achieve more.” “Inspiration and emotion are inextricably linked together. The inspiring leader learns how […]
Read post »This is an extraordinary book on leadership from the experts in extraordinary leadership. In 2002, legendary training and development expert Jack Zenger (he’s been given numerous international awards and citations) and Joe Folkman (renowned psychometrician with extensive expertise in survey research and leader assessments) published their groundbreaking book The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into […]
Read post »Leadership is fast resembling the famous Mark Twain quote about the weather – everybody’s always talking about it but nobody does anything about it. Based on their ongoing research, The Conference Board of Canada concludes, “Building leadership capacity has been a top priority for several years, at least on paper. The problem is that, while […]
Read post »Over the years that I have been writing The Leader Letter, culture and organization development emerged as a core theme. One of the early OD works was a 640 page text book written by Newton Margulies and Anthony P. Raia entitled Organizational Development: Values, Process, and Technology. On page three they outline these core values […]
Read post »I am continually looking for research linking the “soft skills” of leadership and culture with safety performance. Most safety programs are focused on “hard” or tangible systems and processes like regulations, training, audits, risk assessments, compliance, incident analysis, and the like. Those are critical elements in moving toward zero workplace injuries. The focus of my […]
Read post »Use this checklist as a “time out” to reflect on your leadership strengths and gaps. When faced with wrenching changes, setbacks, and difficulties do you generally Lead, Follow, or Wallow? What would your team say? How do you know? What percent of your time are you now spending on Technical (applying your expertise and solving […]
Read post »A few months ago I posted a blog on “What’s Your Me/We Ratio? based on a salient observation made by Donald Cooper in his newsletter about managers’ use of “I” and “my,” rather than “we” and “our.” They seem to live by the American pop music star Madonna’s creed: “everyone is entitled to my opinion.” […]
Read post »