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Are we for sale?
Being part of a successful start up is invigorating. Even for those with no equity stake, the energy and excitement is contagious and makes it easy to work hard for the good of the whole. In the face of growth and strong performance, some may begin to wonder if the good times will soon end … Continue reading Are we for sale?
How to test for and secure top team alignment on key matters to improve growth and performance.
Leadership teams need to Get Clear about many things, including: What problem their organization solves for whom. What is most important to do differently next. Who to count on for what. Leaders often struggle to reach a good, a better, or even a best solution to countless such questions. More important than the right answer, though, … Continue reading How to test for and secure top team alignment on key matters to improve growth and performance.
Introducing Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World as an interactive digital workbook.
Many intelliven.com blog posts are based on the slides and lecture notes from a masters class in Organization Development called Organization Analysis and Strategy offered at American University and taught by Peter DiGiammarino. These posts and other material from class, including: Work problems, Templates, Graphics, Slide shows, and Assessments are available from Amazon as a softcover workbook … Continue reading Introducing Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World as an interactive digital workbook.
Building a High-Performance Leadership Team: Embracing Depth, Conceptual Thinking, Connectivity, and Drive for Exceptional Results
When building a core leadership team target for each team member to be: Deep: Look for an extraordinary depth of competence in a functional or technical area or a methodology that is essential to the organization’s business; Conceptual: The best leaders have an ability to abstract fully-formed concepts from a collection of parts and are able to communicate complex … Continue reading Building a High-Performance Leadership Team: Embracing Depth, Conceptual Thinking, Connectivity, and Drive for Exceptional Results
Announcing: Manage to Lead — Seven Truths to Help You Change the World
Whether one wants to change personal habits, implement a new information system, improve a business process, get team members to work together, increase a community’s appreciation for diversity, or even to topple a monarchy, taking seven actions driven by seven disarmingly simple truths will individually and collectively help achieve the goal. Peter DiGiammarino will present a one-hour … Continue reading Announcing: Manage to Lead — Seven Truths to Help You Change the World
How to use the Change Framework to turn initiatives into action.
If the leader thinks s/he knows what needs to change and that everyone is aligned, ask: “How do you know your team knows what you want to do; why don’t we ask them just to verify? If they all say what you expect them to say, a positive step towards getting what you want done … Continue reading How to use the Change Framework to turn initiatives into action.
Four questions an organization needs to ask every performance period in order to perform, learn, and grow to its full potential.
It is impossible to control what you cannot, and what you do not, measure. For every important thing that the organization does, decide what is most important to monitor and then watch carefully to know how things are going. If what to monitor is not known then: Watch everything and whittle away what turns out … Continue reading Four questions an organization needs to ask every performance period in order to perform, learn, and grow to its full potential.
How to form and ask good questions of customers and prospects to create and expand the opportunity to deliver great value.
Good questions of customers and prospects can dramatically increase the odds of developing opportunities to deliver value. Questions that engage and that allow the customer or prospect to reveal and expand their realities and the opportunities to provide value are ideal. It takes conscious effort to plan for, create, and to make the most of opportunities to engage. … Continue reading How to form and ask good questions of customers and prospects to create and expand the opportunity to deliver great value.
Why it is important to get off of auto-pilot and how to do it.
Most people find it is hard to connect all nine dots in the figure at left with four straight lines, without retracing any lines, and without lifting their writing implement. The reason it is hard to do is because in order to solve the puzzle a person has to think and operate in ways that … Continue reading Why it is important to get off of auto-pilot and how to do it.
How to set up and run an Executive Incentive Compensation Program.
Each year, a well-run organization’s leadership completes a planning and budgeting process. Achievement of the resulting annual business plan is dependent on each organizational unit meeting or exceeding its established goals as part of that plan. This requires that individual leaders take ownership of their part of the plan. The objective of the Executive Incentive … Continue reading How to set up and run an Executive Incentive Compensation Program.
How to administer annual salary actions in a fair and rational manner.
Labor costs are the largest expense for many organizations and so should be carefully and responsibly managed; every salary action should be taken seriously. Nothing affects organization culture more than how people are paid. Less experienced managers and leaders may use salary actions as a way to keep staff happy thinking, perhaps, that they are … Continue reading How to administer annual salary actions in a fair and rational manner.