As I wrote about the accountability mess, a good person in a bad system or process sets that them up for failure — and blame. “The 85/15 Rule” emerged from decades of root cause analysis of service/quality breakdowns. About 85% of the time the fault is caused by the system, processes, structure, or practices of […]
Read post »An old fable tells of a farmer with a wagon brimming full of cabbage heading to a new market. He stops for directions and asks, “How far is it to the market?” The man replies, “It’s about an hour if you go slowly but if you rush it will take all day.” It was a […]
Read post »When you experience failure, loss, or a serious setback do you see it as temporary or permanent? Is failure an event or who you are? Is it a learning or crushing experience? Does it traumatize you or become a springboard for growth? Confucius said, “our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising […]
Read post »I’ve just invested research and development time in updating and fusing key components of our workshops and retreats into a new two-day workshop. Periodically we step back and review the latest research, draw from our experience, and enhance our development tools and approaches. The Leading Edge is a new workshop to help leaders struggling with […]
Read post »I once had a speaking engagement with a cleaning and custodial company at their annual management conference. Arriving early and sitting in on the meeting to get a feel for the group and the conference, I was inspired by what a remarkable job those leaders did of bringing “pride of craft” to clean toilets and […]
Read post »About 10 years ago we customized a series of leadership training workshops for a large company. Over the next few years nearly 1,000 supervisors and managers went through the two-day workshops. Ratings were high and participants reported numerous positive outcomes and benefits from attending. However, senior executives didn’t participate and we weren’t able to get […]
Read post »“Belling the Cat,” a tale from the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop, points to the timeless dilemma of knowing versus doing. The story describes a counsel of mice trying to figure out how to deal with “the sly and treacherous manner” that the cat sneaks up on mice and kills them. A young mouse proposed putting […]
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 »Less effective leaders often fall into the either/or trap. Do you want results or teamwork? Do you want happy shareholders or highly engaged employees? Do you want us to hit short-term goals or focus on longer term vision and strategy? Our research clearly shows that extraordinary leaders (top 10%) focus on and/also rather than either/or. […]
Read post »Many organizations are making major investments in external branding. But often less attention or investment is made in improving the organization’s internal effectiveness. If frontline staff isn’t living the brand, customers’ raised expectations are dashed and their anger and cynicism grows. One of the biggest reasons frontline staff can’t live the brand is because operational, […]
Read post »Some people like to build things with their hands. As my wife, Heather, can attest, I didn’t inherit the handyman gene. My farmer father and my cabinetmaker brother kept that gene to themselves. My passion is building with words. My grandmother was a published poet so it’s likely her set of genes that made me […]
Read post »We started working with Troy, an HR leader with a consumer goods manufacturer, last spring. He reached out for help with culture and organization development because communication breakdowns had created extreme silo behavior causing engagement and productivity levels to drop. Working with Troy we found the common ground among the competing departments and he adroitly […]
Read post »In our culture development keynotes, workshops, and retreats we’ve been citing research from the largest study of organizational effectiveness ever undertaken. A few years ago McKinsey & Company published their extensive research in Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage (click here for my book summary and review). The research study identified nine […]
Read post »After months of searching for just the right executive I am delighted that Brad Smith recently joined our team as Director, Business Development. Brad has nearly twenty years of experience as a trusted advisor in organizational effectiveness, leadership/culture development, learning, career and talent management, consulting, Human Resources, and performance improvement to hundreds of organizations in […]
Read post »Eons ago Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough, and fulcrum strong enough, and single-handed I can move the world.” Leveraging strengths have proven to be a powerful way for leaders to boost their effectiveness. A few months ago my blog on “Letting go of Weaknesses is Really Hard” responded to commonly held beliefs […]
Read post »Last week we held our morning briefing in Toronto on Developing Exceptional Leaders. During the first part of the morning I delivered a 90 minute overview of the unique and revolutionary Strengths-Based Leadership Development System. You can view a condensed version of the material I covered in an archived webinar on The Strengths-Based Leadership Development […]
Read post »Good Company ties together the lessons we’re still learning from The Great Recession, and explains what’s fueling the occupy movements, shows how social responsibility and environmentalism is dramatically shifting business approaches, and identifies the rising power of customers. Good Company is an inspiring and uplifting read for those of us working to bring about a […]
Read post »This week kicks off a new academic year in much of the Northern Hemisphere. As classes resume, here’s a critical question for our ongoing personal, team, and organizational effectiveness: is learning a phase of life or a way of life? September, from the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry Learning is to leadership as […]
Read post »Having just returned last weekend from three weeks of midsummer heat in Australia to the continuing deep freeze of winter in Canada, I am especially mindful of changing seasons. March is the month of the spring equinox. At this time of year, day and night are roughly 12 hours each, and the sun is at […]
Read post »In the last few months I’ve been working with three executive teams to help strengthen team effectiveness and boost their leadership of major culture change and development efforts. One team heads up a large commercial construction company in Western Canada, another is a European based international mining company, and the third are senior partners in […]
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