360 assessments are now being used by over 85% of larger and leading organizations. As I wrote in “9 Problems with 360 Multi-Rater Assessments” there’s a growing backlash and resistance to their use because they often search for gaps and weaknesses. Our work with Zenger Folkman has shown that 360 data on a leader’s effectiveness can […]
Read post »Last year we started offering one-on-one phone coaching around The Extraordinary Leader 360 assessments and building strengths-based personal development plans. These typically involve 2, 3, and sometimes more sessions about a month or two apart. As leaders have reported back on their progress we’ve further developed and expanded their action plans. Typically the first step […]
Read post »How many of these points apply to your organization? High “snicker factor” on your vision, values, or mission statements Declining or stagnant employee engagement levels Absenteeism and “mental health days” Difficulty attracting or hanging on to top talent Waning or plateaued Client/Customer satisfaction Resistance to change Weak trust and teamwork Less than stellar service/quality levels […]
Read post »The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen. It is the people inside the company, those on the front lines, who are best qualified to find new ways of doing things. – […]
Read post »It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue … but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look … – Henry David Thoreau, American author, poet, and philosopher Before we can learn to lead, we must learn […]
Read post »Decades of research shows that many leadership development programs have little impact on creating lasting behavior change. Sometimes called “spray and pray” or “sheep dipping,” many efforts provide one-off learning or development events in the hope that something will stick. With weak follow through and little connection to daily work life it rarely does. Decades […]
Read post »With over 500 sites from many countries tuned to our one hour webcast last week it’s clear that Leading a Peak Performance Culture is a topic with lots of interest. You can now view the full archived webcast by clicking here. During this fast-paced session I gave a high altitude, jet speed overview of a […]
Read post »A New Yorker cartoon shows two people standing at a bar having a glass of wine. One is peering over the top of a tall dog cone around his neck and explains to the other “It keeps me from checking my phone every two seconds.” The Information Overload Research Group reports that “knowledge workers in […]
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 »Wells Fargo is now America’s largest bank by market capitalization. One of Zenger Folkman’s early and largest Clients, the company has been working extensively on leadership and culture development for the past decade. CEO John Stumpf observed, “We always say we could leave our strategic plan on an airplane, somebody could pick it up, and […]
Read post »It’s been a few years since we’ve condensed our culture development approaches and experiences into a one hour webinar. Over the past few years we’ve continued working with a variety of North American and global Clients on leadership and culture development. We’ve also added the depth and power of Zenger Folkman’s leadership and coaching skill […]
Read post »Recently I’ve been reviewing our lessons learned on organization and culture development. This is in preparation for our June 17 webinar on Leading a Peak Performance Culture. “Making Change Work … while the Work Keeps Changing” is a new research report from IBM summarizing interviews and online surveys they conducted of over 1,400 leaders responsible […]
Read post »Whenever we ask a group of workshop participants how many rank employee engagement as one of their top priorities, most raise their hands. We’re encountering a growing number of organizations finding that their engagement survey ratings are slipping — and not just at the frontline employee level. A growing number of people — at all […]
Read post »Plato once observed “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when people are afraid of the light.” Ignoring or failing to understand how others see our behaviors keeps us in the dark and diminishes everyone’s perceptions of our leadership effectiveness. Those perceptions then shape […]
Read post »As part of succession planning many organizations are concerned about developing their next generation of senior leaders. Many large companies in well-established industries like financial services, resources, manufacturing, and the like or public sector, education, and healthcare organizations struggle with getting middle and senior managers to embrace leadership development opportunities. We’ve recently published a case […]
Read post »Most 360 feedback assessments search for skill gaps, weaknesses, and training/development needs. We’re running into executives who’ve refused to participate in 360 feedback assessments because they’ve found them negative and often feel beat up by the process — even when they have the counsel of a well-trained coach or psychologist. Some CEOs have banned the […]
Read post »Last year Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman conducted a survey among readers of their Harvard Business Review blog readers. 2,700 responded to the online survey with questions about positive and negative feedback and attitudes about feedback experiences. This was an international survey with over half of the respondents coming from outside the United States. Here […]
Read post »Feedback is critical to leadership effectiveness and development. That’s why 360 Multi-Rater Assessments are used by over 90% of Fortune 500 companies. But many organizations are now experiencing these problems: Focusing on a leader’s weaknesses and skill gaps — many participants find the 360 process negative and punishing. Some executives are now banning 360s from […]
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 »In 2001 only 2 out of 10 people reported that they had a chance to do what they do best every day at work. In 2015 this more than doubled to 5 out of every 10 people. Michelle McQuaid is an honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education, holds a Masters in Applied […]
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