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This is an outstanding book that should become a classic for its extensive research on leadership and organization effectiveness. It’s based on “surveys on the drivers of organizational performance and health from more than 600,000 respondents from 500 organizations across the globe, surveys on the experience of transformational change from more than 6,800 CEOs and senior executives, reviews of […]
Read post »Culture change continues to be a hot topic because it’s vital to successfully implementing change and improvement efforts. It’s one of the key factors in the 50 – 70% failure rate for programs to increase safety performance, service and quality levels, Lean/Six Sigma, productivity, innovation, leadership skills. As I prepare for a series of webcasts, […]
Read post »Recent Client work with culture change, service/quality improvement, safety, and leadership development has led to discussions of values, intentions, and drivers of behavior change. Do you see people as “human assets” to be “motivated” toward your goals? Do you strive for a win/win alignment of helping people get what they want from work while the […]
Read post »I recently came across this bit of wisdom from an unknown author, “Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold — but so does a hard-boiled egg.” Way too many managers confuse intentions, plans, and declarations with actions. Managers must LOL — lead out loud […]
Read post »The training firm Development Dimensions International (DDI) has just released their Global Leadership Forecast 2011. It’s billed as “the biggest study of its kind, involving over 2,600 organizations in 74 countries. Nearly 1,900 HR professionals and 12,500 leaders participated.” This is the sixth biannual forecast they’ve completed since 1999. The forecast conclusions are very useful […]
Read post »A recent blog post on “Nine Leadership Behaviors to Build Commitment” provoked a few excellent questions/observations that got me thinking — and responding. Reader input included: How is the measurement and management of leadership effectiveness actually implemented in practice? Most managers let themselves off the hook for the poor productivity of an employee… Aren’t ego […]
Read post »Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere means vacation travel for many of us. Heather and I just returned from a very enjoyable two week road trip through New York State, New England, and Pennsylvania. With record breaking heat and humidity during the “dog days” of July, we often put up the roof in our little […]
Read post »Last November I began delivering a series of half-day leadership development workshops (part of their ongoing "management forums" series) for City of Guelph supervisors and managers. This is a rare treat to work with a group of learning leaders just 30 minutes from my home in Kitchener, Ontario. Given our close proximity we pulled out […]
Read post »We often hear the axiom that "perception is reality." When it comes to assessing the service/quality levels delivered by our teams/organizations just who’s perception of reality are we using? Reinforcing this month’s four-part series of blog posts on The Three Rings of Perceived Value, here are key perspectives on using our customer perceptions of their […]
Read post »Fourth in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Years ago author and speaker on organizational excellence, Tom Peters, declared, “we can no longer afford to merely satisfy the customer. To win today, you have to delight and astound your customers — with products and services that far exceed their expectations.” […]
Read post »Third in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Today’s external customers or internal partners are looking beyond the core product or service (First Ring) to broader levels of support. The Second or Support Ring encircles a huge array of services and factors. Basically it includes anything an organization does to […]
Read post »Second in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. The 18th century English potter, Josiah Wedgwood, once declared “a composition for cheapness and not excellence of workmanship is the most frequent and certain cause of the rapid decay and destruction of arts and manufacturers.” That’s as true today as when he […]
Read post »First in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Customer service and continuous quality improvement have always been important. As organizations struggle to grow revenues and reduce costs in our challenging economic times, service/quality is becoming even more critical. It’s where organizations thrive, survive, or nosedive. The June 30 blog post, […]
Read post »The company is at a critical leadership crossroad. As with many fast growing startups, their pioneering product development and marketing power made them a major international success. Now Lazaridis and Ballsillie face the critical entrepreneurial growth test: can they shift from building the business to building an executive team that builds the business?
Read post »In the Northern Hemisphere, tomorrow (July 6) marks the beginning of the “dog days of summer,” lasting until early September. Some historical references to this period of hot and sultry weather marked it as an evil time. According to a description written in 1813 by J. Brady in Clavis Calendarium, this is “when the seas […]
Read post »The CLEMMER Group has been purchasing our computer equipment from Dell since we began in 1994. We like their technology, customizing equipment to our needs, value, and next day onsite service. That may change. I just got off the phone from a painful hour of experiencing Dell’s inward focused bureaucracy as Gary, our IT support […]
Read post »My last post reviewed Martin Seligman’s new book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. Here are a few key excerpts: “When asked what, in two words or fewer, positive psychology is about, Christopher Peterson, one of its founders, replied, ‘Other people.’ Very little that is positive is solitary… Other people are the […]
Read post »Since the mid-eighties I’ve been an avid follower of Martin Seligman’s leading-edge work at the University of Pennsylvania. He began his distinguished psychology career in the late sixties studying pessimism, learned helplessness, and depression. His two previous books, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life and Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive […]
Read post »What is leadership? How can I tell if I am a good, bad, or mediocre leader? How can I develop my own leadership? How can we measure and build leadership effectiveness in our organizations? I’ve discovered the ancient secrets and answers to these questions and have created a magic pixie dust that you can sprinkle […]
Read post »We regularly review our seven Timeless Leadership Principles in our workshops while participants assess how well they feel they’re doing with each one, and which of the Principles they’d most like to improve. The one that scores number one or two on participant priority lists for improvement is Mobilizing and Energizing. Supervisors, managers, and executives […]
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