Last month Brad Smith and I attended Zenger Folkman’s Extraordinary Leadership Summit and Coaching Symposium in Salt Lake City. A highlight of the three day event were Client presentations from, and panel discussions with, General Mills, General Motors, and McKesson Corporation (a Fortune 500 healthcare services and IT company). With implementations ranging from two to […]
Read post »A few weeks ago I reflected on the last three years of partnering with Zenger Folkman (“Re-Fired with Building Strengths“) and their powerful strengths-based leadership development methodology found in The Extraordinary Leader. 360 feedback is critical to building strengths or addressing fatal flaws (as long as it avoids the “Nine Problems with 360 Multi-Rater Assessments“). […]
Read post »Most people know that the difference between incompetent coaches and extraordinary coaches is huge. What’s often more surprising are these big differences between OK or mediocre coaching at the 50th percentile and outstanding coaching skills at the 90th percentile: 28% versus 46% of employees willing to “go the extra mile.” Employee commitment jumps from the […]
Read post »Many organizations have increased their efforts to strengthen the coaching skills of their supervisors, managers, and executives. That’s because of mounting evidence showing that coaching effectiveness dramatically improves employee engagement, levels of customer satisfaction, productivity, safety, and profitability while reducing turnover, absenteeism, and costs. Coaching skills have an especially vital impact on “volunteerism.” This is […]
Read post »I am publishing just one blog post this week as I enjoy holiday relaxation with family and friends. So I’ve packed this blog post with enough resources to last the week! Here is a recap of our most popular resources over the past year. I hope you’ll have a little extra time over the holidays […]
Read post »American president, Thomas Jefferson, once said “the glow of one warm thought is worth more to me than money.” Reinforcing feedback produces a powerful afterglow that raises the positivity ratio, energizes and inspires, and provides the pause that refreshes. This is the perfect time of year for you and your team to reflect back looking […]
Read post »Throughout my work I’ve quoted extensively from Martin Seligman’s pioneering work in founding the breakthrough field of positive psychology. This is the study of positive emotion, positive character traits, and positive institutions to raise the importance of psychological health around the world. His most recent focus has been on helping people move from enjoying a […]
Read post »Since The CLEMMER Group’s founding in 1994, business, organizational life — our world — has been dramatically changing. Our first programs and services were built around my just published, third book Pathways to Performance: A Guide to Transforming Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization. Over the next 15 years I wrote four more books that […]
Read post »Our Business Development Director Brad Smith, and I just returned from an intensive week in Park City, Utah. This idyllic setting in the mountains above Salt Lake City is famous for their natural beauty, numerous ski hills and resorts, and the Sundance Film Festival. We didn’t have much time to enjoy this beautiful location with […]
Read post »From its beginning in the 1960s, cognitive psychology has developed science/evidence-based approaches that have proven more effective then drugs and other methods in treating people with depression, phobias, obsessions, addictions, eating disorders, and other life-disrupting problems. University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology, Martin Seligman, established a successful track record researching, developing, and documenting treatment techniques. […]
Read post »I enjoy playing baseball and I am a big fan of the sport — especially the Toronto Blue Jays. So far this year, the Jays are tantalizing their fans with their winning ways. We can only hope it continues right into September! Recently I was facilitating an Extraordinary Leader workshop. This process is based on […]
Read post »Many people find giving or getting performance appraisals stressful and negative. That’s likely why one of the most popular white papers we’ve featured in some time was “Making Performance Appraisals an Inspiring Event“. Strengths-based performance discussions can dramatically change the energy, focus, and effectiveness of these discussions. Focusing on strengths creates higher energy and much […]
Read post »It’s been two years since Jack Zenger and I explored partnering once again (our previous companies, Zenger Miller and The Achieve Group worked together in the 80s). Since forming The CLEMMER Group in 1994 we’ve been approached by many consulting and training organizations to work together. We’ve always chosen to do our own thing and […]
Read post »Last month we had over 500 sites from 30 countries registered for my 60 minute webinar on Building Leadership Skills and Coaching Culture. The webinar was divided into two sections. The first half outlined Five Keys to Building Extraordinary Leaders. The second part was on Six Keys to Building a Coaching Culture with Exceptional Leaders. […]
Read post »Having someone fix our turned up collar or point out we have a piece of spinach in our teeth before a big presentation can be very helpful. The tone and intention of this feedback makes us feel supported and thankful or belittled and resentful. Giving difficult feedback is a critical coaching skill. As reported in […]
Read post »In “Can Every Strength Become a Weakness?” I reported on the lively LinkedIn Strengths-Based Leadership Development discussion group on “How do you help leaders let go of focusing on their weaknesses?” Part of the discussion focused on the mistaken belief that strengths can be overdone and become weaknesses. If you’d like to follow this discussion […]
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 »We had over 400 sites join last week’s webinar on building extraordinary leaders and coaches. During this 60 minute webcast I outlined a high level and highly condensed overview of 5 keys to strengths-based leadership development and 6 steps to building a coaching culture with exceptional leaders. In this fast-paced webcast I rapidly covered: • Key […]
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 […]
Read post »September heralds “Back to School” for many students and parents. This is also a great time of year for leaders and leadership teams to refocus on learning and development. Exceptional leaders are lifelong learners on a journey of continuous personal development. Extraordinary leaders see learning as a way of life not a phase of life. […]
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