Many organizations are struggling with low or mediocre levels of employee engagement, customer service, quality, safety, productivity, and innovation. This reflects uninspiring cultures of mediocrity created by harried leaders madly scrambling to keep up. An organization’s culture ripples out from the senior leadership team leading it. In “Is Your Leadership Team Slipping into These Traps?” […]
Read post »When our kids were young I was often reminded of the old adage “children act like their parents — despite all attempts to teach them good manners.” When one of our kids did something I wasn’t especially pleased with, I found myself asking “where did you learn that?” When I stood back and I reflect on […]
Read post »A department, division, or organization’s culture ripples out from its leadership team. A team that wants to change “them” needs to start with a deep look in the mirror to change “us.” Organizational behavior reflects leadership team behavior. This is much like an old parenting adage, “children are natural mimics; they act like their parents […]
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 »Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends 2016 identified the top ten organizational issues through surveys and interviews with more than 7,000 business and HR leaders from 130 countries. Other than using the dehumanizing phrase “human capital” (treating people as breathing assets with skin, things, or “head count“), this report provides strong research on what’s needed to build […]
Read post »Where’s summer gone already? July and August seem to move at a much higher speed than the rest of the year. I hope you’ve had some downtime to rest and recharge before heading into a busy fall. As I wrote in “Does Your Leadership Team Need Strategic Focus?“, fall is a popular time for leadership […]
Read post »Summer is a great time for some much needed R & R. In our hectic 24/7, crazy busy world it’s even more vital we carve out time for recharging and rejuvenating. Leadership teams also need time away from daily operations and everyday distractions to work together in planning and strategy, reflection and renewal, team building, […]
Read post »Would you like to: Leverage team and organizational strengths for peak performance Integrate major change efforts and development initiatives Build a foundation for significant and sustained culture change Re-energize and refocus the executive team Build cascading change coalitions and robust implementation infrastructure Last week I delivered a 60 minute webinar on Executive Team Building and […]
Read post »Most safety problems have deadly or life altering consequences. That’s especially true in healthcare organizations. Medical errors, quality of care, and infection rates are clear examples. In a recent study published by the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Martin Makary, professor of surgery and health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, […]
Read post »A long list of studies shows that 50 – 70% of leadership, culture, and organization change and development efforts fail. For example, a Harvard Business Review article by Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria on “Cracking the Code of Change” concludes, “the brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.” These efforts typically […]
Read post »We’re working with the leadership team of a multi-billion dollar project that’s critical to the future of the company. Through a series of offsite retreats with dozens of the top managers and key professionals we’ve developed strong alignment on core Strategic Imperatives for the next year. We’re now forming SI Teams and solid implementation plans […]
Read post »‘Tis the season for reflecting, giving, and planning. Most leaders care about their teams and organizations. Gifts, bonuses, parties, and good wishes abound as everyone prepares for a Holiday break. We all appreciate these seasonal expressions of gratitude and warmth. But the most lasting and profound gift a leader can give a team is uplifting […]
Read post »Strong management teams fiercely debate options, challenge each other’s thinking, and find the optimum approaches hidden in the grey area between both sides of tough issues. That takes trust, emotional intelligence, and courage. I am currently coaching a couple of lower performing executive groups struggling to “up their game” and become strong leadership teams. One […]
Read post »Last November I began delivering a series of half-day leadership development workshops (part of their ongoing "management forums" series) for City of Guelph supervisors and managers. This is a rare treat to work with a group of learning leaders just 30 minutes from my home in Kitchener, Ontario. Given our close proximity we pulled out […]
Read post »A three decades long trail of failed organizational change efforts stretches back to include excellence, customer focus/service, total quality management, continuous improvement, team building, reengineering, employee engagement, process management, strategic planning, new technologies, IT systems, safety, and Lean/Six Sigma. And that’s to name just a few! Failure rates of these efforts are 50 – 70% […]
Read post »Has your executive or management team fallen into a few of the traps identified in my last blog post? If so, you’re in good company. Those common team traps are highly interconnected. Getting out of them takes a fair bit of work and approaches unique to each team. Following is a menu of resources and […]
Read post »While you’re recovering from all the feasting – or looking for some time to yourself – here’s a chance to review the most popular of last year’s 100+ blog posts. The links below will take you directly to the post. Many of the blog posts on this Top 10 list were published last summer. That’s […]
Read post »My last post reported on fascinating research from the world of honey bees providing profound and practical insights on building highly effective teams. Team effectiveness depends heavily on the team leadership skills of the person heading up the team. Here’s a look at recent and emerging research on team leadership for stronger team building. “Great […]
Read post »Management is about facts, analysis, and issues of the head. Leadership is about intuition, values, and issues of the heart. Logic is the language of management. Imagery is the language of leadership. Imagery is fuelled by metaphors, parables, analogies, stories, and examples. It’s how we’ve learned from each other and passed along our accumulated experiences […]
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 »