Blog

MtL Workshops: A Proven Way to Accelerate Your Team’s Leadership Skills, Alignment, and Growth

By Peter DiGiammarino

Are you looking for a way to help your team reach its full potential? If so, you may be interested in IntelliVen Manage to Lead (MtL) Workshops. MtL 3-hour Workshops help leaders develop the skills and knowledge they need to architect, build, govern, and change their organizations. MtL Workshops are based on a proven system … Continue reading MtL Workshops: A Proven Way to Accelerate Your Team’s Leadership Skills, Alignment, and Growth

From Vision to Action! How to Align Your Team and Execute Your Plan

By Whitney Bembenek

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, having a clear and well-defined strategy to win the game you are playing is critical. It’s the roadmap that guides your organization towards its goals and ensures that every action and decision aligns with your vision. However, crafting and implementing an effective strategy can be a complex and daunting task. … Continue reading From Vision to Action! How to Align Your Team and Execute Your Plan

How AI Chatbots Can Boost Your Content Creation

By Breanna DiGiammarino

AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard can help you create better content faster and more easily by providing relevant feedback, reasoning and resources. This post shares tips and considerations for using AI chatbots to develop content gleaned from experience during a recent IntelliVen content and community development project for a San Francisco-based, fast-growing startup … Continue reading How AI Chatbots Can Boost Your Content Creation

Private Equity Diligence Support for Federal Sector

By Mark Tice

If you are a Private Equity investor looking for opportunities to invest in firms that provide professional services and software to serve the U.S. federal government, you know how challenging it can be to assess the potential and risks of these businesses. Working with the federal government is not just another market, it is more … Continue reading Private Equity Diligence Support for Federal Sector

How to Sync Your Leadership Team’s Skills with Organization Stage

By Brent Green

If you are a CEO or a senior leader of a growing organization, you know how critical it is to have the right mix of skills, knowledge, and behaviors among your top team to drive growth and performance. How do you adapt your team’s composition and dynamics to match the needs and demands at different … Continue reading How to Sync Your Leadership Team’s Skills with Organization Stage

The Secret to Creating a Productive Private Company Board of Directors

By David Halwig

Successful, fast-growing private companies often struggle with how to set up and operate a high-functioning board of directors. What tends to evolve is a group of well-intentioned people that meet every few months for a couple of days to learn about all the great things the company is doing instead of having a crisp discussion … Continue reading The Secret to Creating a Productive Private Company Board of Directors

4 Steps to Engaging Communities to Build Better Products

By Breanna DiGiammarino

Tech companies constantly need to decide which products and features they should develop next to drive the most value for users. Listening to and elevating the Voice of the Customer through a community-based approach is an ideal way to inform their decision-making, especially when better meeting current user needs accelerates value. As David Spinks shares … Continue reading 4 Steps to Engaging Communities to Build Better Products

How Our Brains’ Hidden Process Can Sabotage Feedback

By Dennis Werkmeister

Feedback is about both performance and perception. For constructive feedback to be received well, and to promote intended change, it helps to understand some things about how our brain works. Our brain makes meaning of the world around us, help us decide the appropriate action for a given situation, and create learning to build a … Continue reading How Our Brains’ Hidden Process Can Sabotage Feedback

What to Do When Your Employees Want More Communication

By Peter DiGiammarino

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This post was initially drafted by Bing using ChatGPT-4 connected to intelliven.com in response to a client question. See end notes for more. Communication is essential for any organization to succeed. It helps align goals, foster collaboration, build trust, and resolve conflicts. However, many leaders struggle to communicate effectively with their employees, especially … Continue reading What to Do When Your Employees Want More Communication

Will you make sure you and your team accomplish the most important thing in the coming year?

By Peter DiGiammarino

Leadership Offsites focus the top team for growth and performance as the current year closes and the next one starts. Offsites are typically of two types: Plan Change – Identify what needs to be done differently to perform better and / or grow faster. Initiative-to-Action – Launch the most important initiative(s). Kurt Lewin, the father of Organization … Continue reading Will you make sure you and your team accomplish the most important thing in the coming year?

How to quit a job you love.

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 26, 2012

It is not easy to quit a job you love. Even with a new dream job in-hand, cutting the cord that connects you to a place you have become part of can be one of the most difficult challenges you ever face in your career. While there is no surefire method, the steps below reflect … Continue reading How to quit a job you love.

Alternatives to a COO.

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 23, 2012

Responsibilities shouldered by the Chief Executive Officer (a.k.a.: CEO, Managing Partner, Managing Director, or Executive Director) of a successful venture increase with growth in scale and complexity. The tension between the need to get things done, get others to do things, bridge the “white space” between organization units, and to represent the organization externally (e.g. … Continue reading Alternatives to a COO.

Three Steps to Selling a Professional Services Work-Plan

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 14, 2012

Follow the three steps below to prepare and a professional services workplan for a prospective customer. Those who hire service providers should also study the steps to understand how the best providers think through what they propose to do for you. To calculate a price for a body of work, a first prepare a plan … Continue reading Three Steps to Selling a Professional Services Work-Plan

How to increase the odds of being happy and of leading a fulfilled life.

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 11, 2012

Most of us seek in our professional affiliation what some call a state of flow or what others call happiness, exhilaration, satisfaction, or leading a fulfilled life. Along these lines see: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and The Doom Loop System by my long time personal executive coach Dr. Dory Hollander who passed away … Continue reading How to increase the odds of being happy and of leading a fulfilled life.

How to run a meeting.

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 4, 2012

Leaders who know how to run a meeting well can improve the odds of achieving maximum performance and efficiency.  On the other hand, it is easy for an organization to lose itself to an endless series of bad meetings.This note addresses the three stages of a good meeting, meeting roles, and how to increase the odds of … Continue reading How to run a meeting.

An Action Plan for Executive Transition INto a Lead Role

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 1, 2012

Executive Transition into a Lead Role One of the hardest things for a senior executive to do is break into an existing system of operation. At first there is an exhilarating air of difference. Everything is new and there is so much to figure out and to absorb. The opportunity to have a major impact … Continue reading An Action Plan for Executive Transition INto a Lead Role

Tips for Top Performance in an Important Job Interview

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 29, 2012

Here are some tips to increase the odds that a high-stakes job interview goes well: be yourself: be honest…be genuine…be sincere.  It is not worth being someone other than yourself just to land the job because in the end it will not be possible for you to continue being the person who got the job.

A Plan to Eat Right for Life

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 29, 2012

“Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels” is a good mantra to run through in your mind over and over as you concentrate on taking in only enough calories to live as they say Eat Right for Life, in order to get and stay fit.  You should also exercise (see this post for details … Continue reading A Plan to Eat Right for Life

Note on Letters of Recommendation

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 23, 2012

Students, parents, teachers, and those who write letters of recommendation for admission to a high school or college often underestimate how much of a difference the recommendation makes. Those who take recommendations seriously and who work to make them the best they can, find it a relatively easy way to get an edge on the … Continue reading Note on Letters of Recommendation

Business Writing Tips

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 17, 2012

The following business writing tips are collected from a variety of sources over a lifetime. Follow them to produce writing  that is easy to read and hard to misunderstand: Use present tense Avoid words that end in: ing and in ly (e.g., really) or in y (e.g., very) Avoid words that have  a z in … Continue reading Business Writing Tips

Resume Writing Tips

By Peter DiGiammarino | January 31, 2012

The most important thing about your resume is that you be proud of how it presents you.  If you are not proud of it, then how can you expect any one else to be impressed? Keep working on it until it presents you in just the way you want. Whenever you even think about your … Continue reading Resume Writing Tips