Which is more important: Achieving goals/commitments or building trust? Successfully following through on objectives or fostering teamwork and cooperation? Delivering quarterly objectives or building a strong culture? Hitting production targets or ensuring no one is injured on the job? Pushing people toward higher performance or pulling inspired efforts from them? Zenger Folkman’s recent research shows […]
Read post »Operating inside the centralized versus decentralized paradox and finding the right balance has been a perpetual conundrum for many organizations. Deciding which model to use is often a values issue centered on issues of control, trust, and autonomy. We’re working with a high growth international resources company acquiring and adding new sites and divisions across […]
Read post »Can a leader be highly effective (increase productivity, profitability, service/quality levels, boost safety, etc.) without being liked? Less effective leaders often think so. They might declare “it’s not a popularity contest, I don’t care if people like me; my job is to get results.” Unlikable leaders get results alright — poor and unlikable results. Zenger […]
Read post »The May-June issue of Harvard Business Review reports on an extensive 10-year study of “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart.” 14 researchers led by professors Steven N. Kaplan at the University of Chicago and Morten Serensen of Copenhagen Business School, drew from a database of assessments of 17,000 C-suite executives including more than 2,000 CEOs. The […]
Read post »Start the New Year learning how to tango! Many leaders believe it’s a trade-off; you can do it fast or you can do it right, but you can’t have both. Drawing from assessments of 75,000 global leaders Zenger Folkman proves that while many believe it can’t be done, the best leaders are already doing it. […]
Read post »The December 1 issue of Fortune magazine has an in-depth profile of Satya Nadalla, the new CEO of Microsoft entitled “The Man Who is Transforming Microsoft.” Writer, Andrew Nusca, was “on the road with Satya Nadella’s traveling rival show” during a recent whirlwind tour of Europe. During those busy few days Andrew gained insights into […]
Read post »What’s your experience with performance reviews? How energizing and helpful are they — to give or receive? Do performance reviews enhance, stunt, or do little for increasing effectiveness? Do you look forward to performance discussions with excitement or dread? The October issue of Harvard Business Review features an article on “The Performance Management Revolution.” The […]
Read post »Whenever we poll leadership audiences on how many of their organizations are concerned about employee engagement, most report this is as a vital issue. It’s been well documented that highly engaged employees lead to much higher levels of productivity, customer service, innovation, and quality with lower levels of turnover and absenteeism. To boost mediocre or […]
Read post »Decades ago, in a Harvard Business Review article, “How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead,” the founder and CEO of a food company made this connection between learning and agility, “Learning is change, and I keep learning and relearning that change is and needs to be continuous… change is the real job of every […]
Read post »A central theme in Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success, is dealing with change through continuous growth and development. As we’ve been revising our workshops — especially our core program, Leading @ the Speed of Change, that theme is resonating even stronger. We all need to be leaders regardless of […]
Read post »A few months ago I delivered a webinar on Essential Building Blocks for Leadership, Coaching, and Culture Development (click on the title if you want to view it now). The 45 minute webinar (plus 15 minutes of Q & A) was divided into three main sections: Foundational and time tested frameworks used for years in […]
Read post »The “dark side” of fixing weaknesses is very alluring. Last week I was facilitating our Extraordinary Leader workshop with a group of senior leaders. This was a highly experienced team who were strongly motivated to improve their organization and their own effectiveness. All participants had been through 360 feedback assessments before. Many reported feeling beat […]
Read post »Our organizations desperately want and need much stronger leadership and coaching at all levels. But most organizations aren’t significantly improving employee engagement, customer satisfaction, attracting and retaining top talent, succession planning, increasing health and safety, or energizing organization culture. Traditional leadership and coaching skill development methods are producing very little behavior change. Current approaches are […]
Read post »Last month I delivered a one hour webinar on How Learning and Development Can Build Stronger Leaders and Cultures (click on title to view it) sponsored by The Institute for Performance and Learning (formerly the Canadian Society for Training and Development). During the webinar we ran a poll on the research and best practices presented. […]
Read post »In 2001 only 2 out of 10 people reported that they had a chance to do what they do best every day at work. In 2015 this more than doubled to 5 out of every 10 people. Michelle McQuaid is an honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education, holds a Masters in Applied […]
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