An elderly gentleman went to the doctor about a gas problem. “But,” he told the doctor, “it really doesn’t bother me too much. When I pass gas, they never smell and are always silent. As a matter of fact, I’ve passed gas at least 10 times since I’ve been here in your office. You didn’t […]
Read post »A sociologist was researching the long-term effects of family violence. He interviewed two sons of an alcoholic and abusive father. Both brothers were now in their sixties. One son looked back on a life of alcoholism, violence, failed marriages, joblessness, prison terms, suicide attempts, and poverty. The other son was a very successful professional. He […]
Read post »A few years ago, our family visited a corn maze. It was a series of pathways cut through a large cornfield. The corn was 7-8 feet high. Once in the maze, there was no way to see over the corn. It was a long and complex maze with many dead-ends and circular loops. Before we […]
Read post »One of our most recent popular blogs was on bully bosses and featured a quiz to help determine if your boss is a bully or just a poor leader. A follow-up blog on leading up included five ways to deal with a bad boss. But what if you’re a bully or poor boss — and […]
Read post »In our executive coaching and Extraordinary Leader workshops, we see a wide variety of responses to leaders receiving their 360 assessment feedback. We generally see one of these four responses: Prisoners of Score These participants are most often in workshops where the leader was forced to participate. They want to serve the minimum time in […]
Read post »The use of 360 degree assessments has exploded in the past few decades. They’re now widely available in a bewildering variety of tools used for leadership development, executive coaching, performance management, personal growth, etc. Do a Google search on variations of 360 degree feedback, assessment, or tools and go shopping among millions of options. The […]
Read post »Most leaders don’t live by the motto: “do what I say, not what I do.” Their apparent hypocritical behavior is innocent and sincere. They simply don’t know that their actions are seen as out of step with their words. Not checking blind spots can lead to deadly highway accidents. Leaders who don’t seek feedback often […]
Read post »One of my favorite podcasts is Terry O’Reilly’s “Under the Influence,” focused on the advertising and marketing business. Terry’s a master story-teller. He continually finds unusual and interesting stories to start each podcast. His recent podcast, “Setting the Table: Best Opening Stories,” looked back at his stories from over 300 episodes that generated the most […]
Read post »Last week, I delivered a 45-minute webinar on Powerful New Approaches to Leadership and Coaching Development. This webinar condensed the key research and approaches from The Extraordinary Leader and The Extraordinary Coach workshops. An 11-minute Q & A session followed the webinar presentation. I was able to answer just seven questions and couldn’t get to […]
Read post »Would you like to: Increase employee engagement by up to 8 times? Double/triple motivation to implement a personal development plan? Build coaching and leadership skills around natural/authentic strengths? Make performance appraisals an inspiring event people look forward to? Double rates of improvement from 360 feedback? What leader or development professional doesn’t want those results? But […]
Read post »Almost 20 years ago, Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman began a two-year research project to review 360 assessments on over 20,000 leaders. They sought to pinpoint the leadership competencies differentiating the top 10 percent of leaders from the bottom 10 percent of leaders. Jack and Joe correlated assessments of the best and worst leaders against […]
Read post »In the wake of two fatal crashes of Boeing’s new 737 Max jets, Harvard Business School professor and author of a new book on creating psychological safety in the workplace, Amy Edmondson, published an article on Boeing and the Importance of Encouraging Employees to Speak Up. She writes, “The accidents and the resulting media attention […]
Read post »A block and tackle is a system of pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them to lift heavy loads. This amplifies the force applied. With enough pulleys or by threading the rope through them a few times, you can pull on the rope and lift 3, 4, or more times the weight you’d […]
Read post »André Gide, French writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature said, “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” Sincere hypocrisy came to mind when a workshop participant complained about how badly his manager and their bosses needed that very leadership development session. He said […]
Read post »We’re now planning our fall series of webinars, briefings, and public workshops. You can see what we’ve got planned in our Coming Events section. I pulled together, updated, and condensed our research, workshop materials, and key learning from The Extraordinary Leader and The Extraordinary Coach development systems into a 60 minute complimentary webinar. To provide […]
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