Social media is a key force in making the Internet truly a world wide web of interconnections. And that means the penalties or pays offs of low or high service/quality levels are exponentially multiplied. Technology for collecting and analyzing data along with process management approaches like Lean/Six Sigma are powerful management tools. They can pinpoint […]
Read post »A few weeks ago my blog post on “Talent Management: Developing Strengths of Individual Contributors” reviewed 4 key reasons for developing key individual contributors. It also provided links to our white paper “Individual Contributors: Building on Strengths is the Foundation of Success at Every Level“. Some highly professional individual contributors wield great influence and make […]
Read post »I’ve been guilty of perpetuating the misconception of the well-rounded leader. Like many training and development professionals I used to believe that leadership skills development comes from assessing leaders against a leadership framework or competency model and developing an improvement plan to round out the flat or weak spots. But this long-held view is no […]
Read post »If you’re not connected with me on LinkedIn you may have missed the discussion generated by my post, “Wasting Time on Weaknesses“. Some commentators like Richard Peterson agree that weakness-based improvement plans are demotivating and wasteful. He goes further to call people “delusional” who continue to focus on weaknesses despite the “overwhelming evidence to the […]
Read post »The Sochi Olympics show the colossal impact of key individuals on team success or a country’s medal count. Popular entertainers or professional athletes are glaring examples of the outsize impact that key individuals have on the success of a movie or sports franchise. Organizational success often hinges on oversized contributions from pivotal players like software […]
Read post »We are often asked, “What is the one thing a person ought to do to be a better leader and have a more successful career?” While it is difficult to narrow down the list to just one thing, there is one that seems to surface over and over again in Zenger Folkman’s research. That one […]
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 »Would you like to move beyond building individual leaders to building a culture of exceptional leadership and coaching in your organization? Are you concerned about succession planning, deepening leadership bench strength, cultivating teamwork, recruiting top talent, increasing retention and engagement, improving customer service, safety and wellness, and increasing sales and profits? These critical issues are […]
Read post »Fixing weaknesses is so deeply ingrained in our practices and beliefs. When coaching or having performance discussions with a team member, most leaders will quickly gloss over strengths to address “improvement areas.” After reading How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths, Janet Pierce, Vice President of Education for Certified General Accountants […]
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 »In “Assess Your Effectiveness at Getting and Giving Feedback” I summarized Zenger Folkman’s recent research on the power of feedback. Leaders ranked in the top and bottom 10% on asking for and giving feedback were also rated the highest or lowest in leadership effectiveness and engagement levels. The post had a link to Zenger Folkman’s […]
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 »Where did 2013 go?! Were the days of the past year a tornado of multi-tasking juggling endless e-mails, phone calls, hurried hallway conversations, and racing between meetings? Did you spend countless hours putting out fires and responding to one problem after another? A major leadership — and life — skill in today’s crazy-busy times is […]
Read post »If you’re a LinkedIn member please join our Strengths-Based Leadership Development group. If you’re not already connected to me, please click on http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jimclemmer/ and send me an invitation to connect. As a reader of this blog you should find our recent discussion (How do you help leaders let go of focusing on their weaknesses?) useful. […]
Read post »An 11 Keys to Building Extraordinary Leaders and Coaches webinar participant e-mailed me with this observation and question: “It’s amazing that for so long our organization has been concentrating on improving employee weaknesses and seemed to forget about helping them achieve greatness by focusing on what they are good at. I assume I can use […]
Read post »Lean/Six Sigma was brought into more popular use with the Total Quality Management/Continuous Quality Improvement movements over two decades ago (you can read some of the roots of approach in this online Introduction to Firing on all Cylinders: The Service/Quality System for High-Powered Corporate Performance). In 1990 MIT researcher James P. Womack published The Machine […]
Read post »Organizations too often waste time and money providing leadership development programs that don’t work. Very little of their learning and development efforts significantly improve long term team or organizational results. A major reason for this all too common performance improvement shortfall is lack of follow up. Participants are “sheep dipped” in a workshop or 360 […]
Read post »In the opening lines of the chapter entitled, “Making Strength Productive” in his 1967 book The Effective Executive, the “father of modern management,” Peter Drucker writes, “to make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weakness with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make […]
Read post »As with my webinar earlier this month, 11 Keys to Building Extraordinary Leaders and Coaches (now archived and available for viewing), when presented with the overwhelming research, reflecting on their own experiences with good and bad leaders, and thinking about what motivates them to stick with an improvement plan, most audience members experience a sharp […]
Read post »In 1998, Martin Seligman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, was elected President of the American Psychological Association by a landslide. This set him casting about for a central theme for his time in this key leadership role. A few weeks later — still puzzling over a theme — he was weeding in […]
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