Earlier this month, Nik Wallenda made his record-breaking walk right across roaring Niagara Falls from the U.S. to Canada. With wind blowing mist around him and the wire dripping wet, he descended and ascended the sloping cable. It was high definition, nail biting, heart pounding, suspense that left Heather and I feeling weak-kneed as we […]
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 »I recently awoke to a pleasant surprise in my e-mail. I’ve been included on a list of the world’s "top 30 most influential leadership gurus." I am especially honored to be in the company of leaders that I’ve learned so much from, such as Warren Bennis, Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, Marshall […]
Read post »My last post brought a few insights and research on dealing with uncertainty. The post before that was built around Dan Gardner’s excellent new book, Future Babble. It drew parallels with one of his key themes (expert hedgehogs and foxes) by discussing management hedgehogs and leadership foxes. A key difference from management hedgehog’s rigid planning […]
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 »Last weekend was perfect weather to clean up our perennial garden. After a few days of much needed heavy rains, the sun was shining again. The garden was springing back to life with plenty of green shoots (sadly, the deer and rabbits did chew off a few) and vigorous growth. So it was time to […]
Read post »Given the popularity of my Thriving in Turbulent Times webcast on December 3rd (over 550 sites tuned in), I am partnering with the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) to bring you another fast-paced hour of ideas, inspiration, and how-to applications on developing leadership skills on February 12th. In this unique and rare webcast, […]
Read post »I’ve long collected research on the deadly dangers (both to our physical and mental health) of wallowing below the line in the swamp of negativity and pessimism. Wallowers usually call this being “realistic.” That’s very true. It is the cynical reality they’ve chosen to create for themselves. When writing Growing @ the Speed of Change […]
Read post »Over the past few months as I’ve been polishing, editing, and finalizing my new book Growing @ the Speed of Change: Your Inspir-actional How-To Guide For Leading Yourself and Others through Constant Change, our Marketing Director, Aidan Crawford, has been renovating and upgrading our web site. Our consistent goal since our first site was posted […]
Read post »www.connectitnews.com has been posting a series of my articles on their site. Recently they ran this one: Many Managers Disempower Themselves Many managers unwittingly believe that leadership only comes down from the top. They give away their power by believing that they don’t have any. Read the whole article here. After reading this article, Herb […]
Read post »The April 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review has a short item entitled “How Toxic Colleagues Corrode Performance.” The authors polled several thousand managers and employees from a range of American companies. Here’s what they found is the impact of negative and rude behavior in the workplace: • 48% decreased their work effort • 47% […]
Read post »Continuing the theme of meetings, here’s a great list of suggestions from Seth Godin’s March 27, 2009 blog post, “Getting serious about your meeting problem.” : • Understand that all problems are not the same. So why are your meetings? Does every issue deserve an hour? Why is there a default length? • Schedule meetings […]
Read post »Last week I introduced the April issue of The Leader Letter by pointing out the world is in the midst of major change. I also suggested that we’re seeing glimmers of hope and signs of renewed growth. Richard Kessener, Out-Patient Pharmacy Manager at Feather River Pharmacy in Paradise, California (I got a taste of paradise […]
Read post »It is said that everyone is Irish today – St. Patrick’s Day. Since I am not Irish, drinking regular or green beer was not a tradition growing up on my family’s Mennonite farm – and I love to get historical perspectives so I looked up St. Patrick’s Day on Wikipedia. I was astounded to learn […]
Read post »Keeping frontline staff engaged and energized is a growing problem. The leadership opportunities were just illustrated again last week in a couple of leadership development workshops with supervisors and managers who were frustrated by the low levels of morale and commitment from the staff on the teams they lead. They were quick to point to […]
Read post »I recently did some office reorganizing and came across the small model of a yellow Lamborghini Diablo and thank you note from David, a workshop participant. He had participated in a Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop and really connected with my garbage truck story as an example of building self-control – one of […]
Read post »Like the weather, many people talk about innovation but few managers do much about it. Unlike the weather, there is a lot managers can and must do about innovation – especially in difficult times. Innovation often falls into the same trap as strategic planning, economic forecasting, and change management. There is no orderly path that […]
Read post »A web site visitor from England sent me the following e-mail: “I’m astonished at how good basic common sense reads as a revelation; even more confusing to me, is why it is so difficult for me to share such good practice with managers who are operating with an altogether ‘different’ philosophy and getting it wrong!? […]
Read post »Too many managers seem to operate on a variation of an old Groucho Marx routine; “I’ve got top priorities. I am going to stick to those priorities. And if you don’t like those priorities…I have others.” It’s very hard to bring the discipline of a goal setting system or planning process to a team or […]
Read post »Most performance review systems are a disaster. They’re a perfect example of a great idea – getting team leader and team member together periodically to review what’s work and what’s not and make plans for continuous improvement – that has become a bureaucratic “fill in the forms” exercise. They are demotivating and degrading in most […]
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