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 »Condensing four decades of lessons learned into a 45 minute webcast is proving to be an invigorating challenge. A few months ago I stepped back for a long and broad look at hundreds of keynotes, workshops, and retreats we’ve delivered across a full range of industries and organizations in many countries. This led to a […]
Read post »Recently I delivered a keynote presentation on culture and leadership development at a senior leader’s conference. Robert Richman also spoke at the event sharing his insights and experiences as co-creator of Zappos Insights, a program for educating companies on the powerful culture of Zappos that catapulted the American online shoe retailer from a startup in […]
Read post »“I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” “Work sucks, but I need the bucks.” “I’d rather be fishing/sailing/golfing/…” Surveys show that these phrases express the feelings of a growing number of frontline performers today. Too often these contagious feelings spread throughout a team or organization. How many of these attributes of cynical […]
Read post »Southwest Airlines has not only been the most financially successful airline in history it has also produced the #1 return to investors of all S&P 500 publicly traded companies for a 30 year period. Herb Kelleher, co-founder, Chairman Emeritus, and former CEO declares, “it’s the intangibles that are the hardest things for competitors to imitate. […]
Read post »This month’s November illustration shows pigs feeding on an autumn harvest of acorns. This medieval European scene continues today in large oak groves of Spain and Portugal. A 14th century English proverb states, November, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry “Large streams from little foundations flow and tall oaks from little acorns […]
Read post »Here are especially vital findings and powerful observations about just what it takes to build a peak performance culture. These are drawn from Harvard Business School professor, James Heskett’s new book, The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force That Transforms Performance: “Culture really matters. As Lou Gerstner wrote, reflecting on his experiences in […]
Read post »Organizational culture development is a complex topic with many intertwined leadership components. Establishing a peak performance culture in what’s sometimes called a “green field” situation has different challenges than changing an established culture (sometimes called “brown field”). In response to my July blog, RIM/Blackberry is at a Critical Leadership Crossroad, a subscriber sent me this […]
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