Last week we held our morning briefing in Toronto on Developing Exceptional Leaders. During the first part of the morning I delivered a 90 minute overview of the unique and revolutionary Strengths-Based Leadership Development System. You can view a condensed version of the material I covered in an archived webinar on The Strengths-Based Leadership Development […]
Read post »Tomorrow is Halloween. So it’s fitting to read a very well written piece in Fortune about “how smart companies are facing the doomsayers with great ideas and fearless moves.” Senior Editor at Large, Geoff Colvin, has been a long-time favorite business writer of mine. He often shows how the best leaders build the strongest companies. […]
Read post »Last week I was facilitating a two-day development retreat with a management team in Western Canada. We were discussing Zenger Folkman’s powerful research on the statistical correlations and interactions of leadership behaviors. I wrote about this evidence-based leadership approach last month in Leadership Cross-Training is Powerful and Revolutionary. This research has led to a very […]
Read post »My last two posts have focused on dealing with feedback fears and using feedback to move us forward. As we work with Clients to implement our Strengths-Based Leadership Development System we’re tapping into Zenger Folkman’s extensive knowledge base and rapidly expanding our experience and expertise in using 360 feedback tools. It’s an incredibly powerful vehicle […]
Read post »“The eye cannot see its own lashes.” – Chinese proverb “Superior performers intentionally seek out feedback; they want to hear how others perceive them, realizing that this is valuable information … one common mistake is focusing on people’s weaknesses and failing to note their strong points. This can be demoralizing rather than motivating.” – Daniel […]
Read post »Canadian Thanksgiving Day was earlier this month. That holiday Monday was cool with bright sunshine and blue skies. After our traditional Oktoberfest Family Day lunch (Kitchener-Waterloo celebrates their German heritage with the largest Oktoberfest outside of Munich) our family decided to visit a corn maze. It consisted of a series of trails and pathways cut […]
Read post »I’ve been delivering keynotes, webinars, facilitating workshops, and discussing our Strengths-Based Leadership Development System for the past month with many highly experienced HR, Learning, and OD executives. It’s been fascinating to see most of them go through the same struggle I did when I first dug into the compelling research. On the one hand, comments […]
Read post »My last blog announced that my September webinar hosted by the Canadian Society for Training and Development is now archived and available for viewing at The Strengths-Based Leadership Development Revolution. Right after the webinar was broadcast I received this e-mail from a participant: “I had a chance to attend your webinar on The Strengths-Based Leadership […]
Read post »Last week I delivered a 50 minute webinar on The Strengths-Based Leadership Revolution hosted by the Canadian Society for Training and Development. We wrapped it up with 10 minutes of thoughtful participant questions and discussion. This archived webinar is now freely available here. Given the breadth and depth of our Strengths-Based Leadership Development System a […]
Read post »For the last few decades leadership development has used a linear approach. For example, communication skills training might involve breaking down the key actions of the skill, showing examples of strong communication, practicing key steps of the skill, and getting coaching or feedback. Linear training is effective and will often help a motivated learner get […]
Read post »I’ve just read an advance copy of Zenger Folkman’s new book, How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths. It’s an outstanding — it really is exceptional — leadership book co-authored by four of Zenger Folkman’s top executives. In upcoming blogs I’ll review and draw from How to Be Exceptional. Next week […]
Read post »As a leadership geek my idea of weekend relaxation is cruising Internet sites for research, insights, and perspectives on culture and leadership development. I’ll often post these to my LinkedIn profile which also links to Twitter and my Facebook profile . If you’re not already connected to me on LinkedIn please send me an invitation to […]
Read post »We’ve just finalized a Strategic Partnership with Zenger Folkman (www.zengerfolkman.com). After so many years of successful partnering with Jack Zenger at his previous company (he headed up Zenger Miller when I was a partner in The Achieve Group), I am quite excited to be working with him and his colleagues again. Their foundation program is […]
Read post »June’s issue of The Leader Letter was published last week with a series of my May blogs on customer service (the opening story on Where’s Your Culture on the Customer-Cattle Continuum?, “Want to Improve Customer Service? Treat Your Employees Better“, “American Express Boosts Customer Service with Transformed Leadership and Culture“, and “Delightful Dell Service Shows […]
Read post »To deal with all the tumultuous change swirling around us today many executives rearrange their organizational structure. This seems to be an especially favorite approach of a new executive taking over a division, department, or organization. It’s almost routine when there’s been a major organization financial failure or big public blunder. But as with all […]
Read post »Sometimes it feels like our technology picks the toughest time to test us! I was on the Calgary leg of a road trip to Regina, Calgary, Seattle, and Anchorage a few weeks ago when my computer failed to boot up as I arrived at my hotel room that night. I live on this thing. I […]
Read post »Just after writing my last blog on improving customer service by treating your employees better I came across an interview on Jim Bush, EVP of World Service, at American Express. The new leadership approach Jim describes Amex has used since he took charge of this role in 2005 provides powerful data and examples of how […]
Read post »This is the title of a recent report in the University of Pennsylvania newsletter Knowledge @ Wharton. Part of the article reports on “a recent study conducted by Marshall Fisher, a professor of operations and information management at Wharton, and other colleagues.” He goes on to show how one of the keys to improving customer […]
Read post »As I fine tuned my Leadership and Culture Development for Higher Health and Safety webcast presentation, I’ve been reflecting on the lessons learned from the quality movement and the widespread failure to apply those to workplace safety. Starting in the late eighties and eventually morphing into Lean/Six Sigma, the quality movement completely revolutionized management thinking […]
Read post »In preparation for an offsite executive team retreat, the executive organizing the session sent me a draft of the mission and vision statements “we’ve been struggling with.” She included earlier versions and iterations of each statement. She was especially frustrated and confused by the overlap of the two. She was looking for my help to […]
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