I’ve extensively quoted and cited the expanding body of emotional intelligence research for many years in my writing and workshops. This rigorous and ever deepening research provides hard evidence for the catalytic power of “soft skills” in personal, team, and organizational performance. EI brings empirical science and greater clarity to the fuzzy topic of leadership. […]
Read post »A few weeks ago one of my Tweets linked to a BusinessWeek article “How Incentives Can Undermine Your Influence.” The article focuses on Danny Meyer “the most influential restauranteur in New York City…today every one of his 10 restaurant brands have appeared every year in Zagat’s top 40 for New York City.” The article’s author, […]
Read post »My last blog post featured an inspiring verse on the power of habit to enable or enslave us. Our habits make or break us. A habit is a learned behavior causing us to think and act automatically. Many times, we’re not aware of the hundreds of tiny and bigger habits we’ve acquired over our lifetime. […]
Read post »Like finding a $20 dollar bill in the pocket of a jacket you haven’t worn for a while, it’s always delightful to rediscover inspirational gems. Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with a very progressive and delightful Client to finalize a two-day management training workshop we’ve been customizing for their senior and middle […]
Read post »With the Chilean miners successful rescue last month, the questions around how they became trapped in the first place will lead to numerous investigative media reports and inquiries. Those stories, reports, and inquires are now emerging around the giant BP oil disaster this spring and summer in the Gulf of Mexico. Early stories and reports […]
Read post »My last blog post discussed some of the commitment confusion and challenges we see with many management teams we’re working with. Here are two key behaviors that send very loud, visual messages about managers’ true priorities: Visible, Felt Leadership or Remote Control Management Managers in high-performing organizations spend much more time “managing by wandering around” […]
Read post »This fall we’ve been working extensively with executive teams striving to transform their cultures to boost safety, customer service, quality, and leadership at all levels. I wrote about some of this work around our Commitment Continuum in an earlier blog post which was also published in our October issue of The Leader Letter (“Lasting Culture […]
Read post »My last blog post highlighted the big problem of a culture of fear within many teams and organizations. In the middle of preparing today’s post, I’m doing some fall clean up in my garden while listening to a radio panel discussion on the huge problem of medical errors. Fear of speaking up or admitting mistakes […]
Read post »A recent survey of more than 400,000 employees across various industries by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) showed that “nearly half of executive teams lack the information they need to manage effectively because employees withhold vital input out of fear that doing otherwise will reflect poorly on them. This restricted information flow can cripple a […]
Read post »This fall we’re deep in the thick of helping a number of Clients plan and execute extensive multi-year implementations of leadership and culture development processes to dramatically boost customer service, product/service quality, safety, employee engagement, succession planning, efficiencies, and another key elements of organization effectiveness. Since leadership and culture development are clearly people issues, we […]
Read post »My last post (“Bouncing Back from Adversity is a Core Leadership Skill”) featured PEAK’s Learning Adversity Continuum. The research that produced this response range for dealing with life’s setbacks, pain, and suffering showed that a tiny minority of people (strong Leaders) use adversity as fuel to move toward higher ever higher personal and team/organizational leadership. […]
Read post »Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. The happiest and most effective people are Leaders who may need a “therapeutic visit to Pity City” but bounce back from changes, setbacks, and problems. However, most people are Followers and wait for someone else to show the way or help them decide how to feel or respond. And […]
Read post »During decades of work in this field I’ve seen many new approaches burst on the scene only to fade away. I have dozens of studies in my database library showing the high failure rates of these “hot” programs. What’s most important when dealing with change and turbulence is not to be on the leading edge […]
Read post »SkillSoft is a leading provider of e-learning and performance support programs and services. The company provides comprehensive e-learning content, online information resources, and learning technologies for global enterprises, government, education and small to medium-sized businesses. I am delighted to be partnering with SkillSoft and providing the keynote presentation at their October 14 conference at the […]
Read post »We are working with four executive teams this fall who are looking to implement major new initiatives aimed at dramatically shifting their organizational culture and performance. One is a large international retailer completely revamping their entire supply chain process. Another is a major global mining company determined to dramatically boost their safety performance. A mid-sized […]
Read post »I just read about the results of an OI Partners (a global talent management firm) survey with these sobering statistics; “Inadequate management skills such as leadership, motivating people, and building team work are the top reasons why executives and managers today are not working out. 65% of surveyed companies cited deficient management skills as the […]
Read post »Many of this month’s blog posts have been around improving the rampant levels of declining customer service levels in most organizations. Managers often point to frontline servers attitudes as the source of the problem and look for quick motivational or training fixes. But who hired the servers? Who trains them? Who provides the systems and […]
Read post »I was just sent a link to a powerful video that shows – once again – how leaders change reality and shape perceptions – their own and others. The four-minute clip shows Nick Vujicic fully engaged in sporting activities and speaking to young people about perspective. Nick was born with no arms and legs. But […]
Read post »A television producer called me recently to discuss a story she’s working on around declining customer service levels and what to do about it. We agreed that there’s been a big drop in customer service over the past two years. I believe this problem is rooted in three common causes: Misuse of Technology – forcing […]
Read post »A long term Client sent me an e-mail looking for advice on how to best position his expertise for a new position he is pursuing: “What would you say are the major differences between the strategies to support service excellence in a retail environment with fixed locations/employees (i.e, McDonalds) versus a service company with technicians […]
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