Blog

Developing Shared Ways of Thinking and Working

By Peter DiGiammarino

Leadership teams develop shared ways of thinking and working by making thinking visible, strengthening it together, and cultivating leadership disciplines that shape organizational culture.

Making Thinking Visible

By Peter DiGiammarino

Leadership teams can only examine, improve, and build upon thinking that becomes visible. This essay explores why revealing observations, assumptions, reasoning, and questions enables leadership teams to develop stronger shared understanding, make better decisions, and improve organization performance.

Leadership Conversations Start Before They Begin

By Peter DiGiammarino

This essay builds on the ideas introduced in The Leadership Team’s Most Important Asset. Leadership teams create enormous value through conversation because conversation is the primary way they develop, maintain, and continually strengthen a shared understanding of the organization they are responsible for leading. Leadership conversations take place in meetings, at offsites, through online exchanges, … Continue reading Leadership Conversations Start Before They Begin

The Leadership Team’s Most Important Asset

By Peter DiGiammarino

Leadership teams talk for hours on strategy, priorities, budgets, talent, and performance. Turning those discussions into coordinated action is agonizingly difficult. The core reason is simple: leaders rarely operate from a shared reality. Even large, well-run organizations are known to spend significant time and money, including on consultants, to evaluate whether they are “ready for … Continue reading The Leadership Team’s Most Important Asset

Conversations Every Fast-Growing Leadership Team Needs

By Peter DiGiammarino

As organizations grow, leadership conversations naturally focus on strategy, fundraising, sales, product, and operations. Those conversations are essential. Yet one conversation often receives far less attention than it deserves, even though it may have the greatest impact on the organization’s future: What do the people around me know about my leadership that I don’t? Every … Continue reading Conversations Every Fast-Growing Leadership Team Needs

If executive offsites are so valuable, why do we only have one or two a year?

By Peter DiGiammarino

Executive offsites have been part of running a business for decades because they work. Leaders wouldn’t continue investing the time, money, and energy it takes to step away from the day-to-day business if they didn’t. Organizations have become increasingly distributed, while AI has dramatically expanded what leadership teams can accomplish together between meetings. Together, those … Continue reading If executive offsites are so valuable, why do we only have one or two a year?

MtL Alumni: Strategy Offsites Start Before You Go

By Peter DiGiammarino

Great strategy discussions start before people walk into the room. As planning season approaches, remember that the best discussions never begin when leadership gathers for an offsite. They begin weeks earlier. Strong teams clarify and share their thinking before they meet. They compare perspectives, challenge assumptions, sharpen priorities, and work together toward a shared understanding of … Continue reading MtL Alumni: Strategy Offsites Start Before You Go

Your Team’s Leadership Workspace is Now Available

By Peter DiGiammarino

For years, IntelliVen has helped leaders: Get Clear. Align. Grow. Together. Effective leadership requires clear thinking, disciplined execution, and alignment across decisions and actions. With this post, we announce the availability of the IntelliVen Leadership Workspace, a collaborative environment that brings together the Manage to Lead tools with AI-guided support to help leadership teams draw … Continue reading Your Team’s Leadership Workspace is Now Available

Revenue Leads Expenses

By Peter DiGiammarino

Most leadership teams know the problem. They set an annual revenue target, build spending around it, and move forward as if the planned revenue inflow is already on its way. If revenue later develops more slowly than hoped, the organization is forced to pull back, delay hires, cut initiatives, and explain why the original plan … Continue reading Revenue Leads Expenses

Before You Build, Get Clear

By Peter DiGiammarino

Before You Build, Get Clear AI makes it easier than ever to build, prototype, and automate. It does not make it any less important to think. When the cost of building drops, the cost of building the wrong thing rises. Remember Peter Drucker’s aphorism that ends wtih “… are you doing the right thing?” That is … Continue reading Before You Build, Get Clear

How to think about and organize Project, Client, and Offering Managers.

By Peter DiGiammarino | June 22, 2013

Organizations that offer solutions to clients manage: Projects, Clients, and Offerings as suggested in Figure 1. Managing each requires different skills and seeks to achieve different goals as outlined below. Project Managers, see Figure 2, deliver offering value to specific clients on time, on budget, and on target. Project Managers are also counted on to extend and … Continue reading How to think about and organize Project, Client, and Offering Managers.

How a new executive earns respect by listening until s/he can be heard.

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 29, 2013

Most people cannot listen until they have been heard. As a consequence, wise leaders who want to affect thinking and behavior learn to first be a great listener to those they aim to impact. Holding back from jumping-in when a key point comes to mind in the middle of a fast-paced conversation can be a challenge but it … Continue reading How a new executive earns respect by listening until s/he can be heard.

Are we for sale?

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 6, 2013

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.

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 1, 2013

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.

By Peter DiGiammarino | April 10, 2013

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

By Peter DiGiammarino | April 10, 2013

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

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 27, 2013

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.

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 13, 2013

If the leader thinks they know what needs to change and that everyone is aligned, ask: “How do you know your team knows what you want to do? It may be a good idea to ask them to verify. If they all say what you expect them to say, a positive step towards getting what … 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.

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 21, 2013

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.

Why it is important to get off of auto-pilot and how to do it.

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 10, 2013

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.

By Peter DiGiammarino | January 22, 2013

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.