Blog

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

Finding the CEO for What Comes Next

By Peter DiGiammarino

An IntelliVen Insight by Eric Palmer. AI is not a feature cycle. It is a reset of SaaS economics. Eric Palmer, a highly successful Senior Operating Partner with more than 30 years of experience leading private, public, private equity-owned, and venture-backed companies, recently shared what he is seeing across  software businesses. Eric uses and has … Continue reading Finding the CEO for What Comes Next

Time Horizon Discipline

By Peter DiGiammarino

Leaders often say: “We don’t have enough time.” “We’re far from our goals.” “Everything feels urgent.” Most of the time, the issue is not time. It is a mismatch between the decision and the planning horizon. Manage to Lead is built on clarity and disciplined change. Time horizon discipline is part of that clarity. Different … Continue reading Time Horizon Discipline

When Attention Is the Constraint, Focus the Work and the Reviews

By Peter DiGiammarino

Most things go wrong because leaders are spread too thin, not because the work is impossible. When the volume of initiatives outstrips reviewer capacity, important items get little or no attention. Meetings slip. Mental presence drops. The fix is to match what we take on to the attention we can invest, and to raise the … Continue reading When Attention Is the Constraint, Focus the Work and the Reviews

The Architecture of Resilience: How Early Labor Silences Fear in High-Stakes Leadership

By Peter DiGiammarino

By: Richard Block From a very early age, working was a given. It was simply what you did. In reflecting on these early experiences and contrasting them with the lives of my children and grandchildren, I see a significant divide. The loss isn’t just in the paycheck; it is in the “patterns of behavior” that … Continue reading The Architecture of Resilience: How Early Labor Silences Fear in High-Stakes Leadership

From Tool to Teammate: Six Practices That Make AI Work for Us

By Peter DiGiammarino

At IntelliVen, we work from a defined body of leadership and management practice: the Manage to Lead (MtL) System. It is documented in our text, taught in our classes, and organized into more than sixty tools and templates and 70 insights and tutorials. We use these tools every day with clients and trainees and we are … Continue reading From Tool to Teammate: Six Practices That Make AI Work for Us

When there’s no right answer: get input, get commitment, then decide

By Peter DiGiammarino

Calls about who the team counts on for what are hard. Leaders worry about making valued people feel overlooked or diminished. Direct reports mostly want clarity, fair reasoning, and as much scope and recognition as they can reasonably earn. This post offers a way to handle those tensions: get input one-on-one, secure commitment to support … Continue reading When there’s no right answer: get input, get commitment, then decide

Say the Same Words. Mean the Same Things.

By Peter DiGiammarino

Walk into almost any leadership meeting and you will hear the same words: Vision. Strategy. Mandate. Values. Culture. Everyone nods. Everyone is confident they understand. Then you listen a little longer and realize something important: People are using the same words to mean different things … and different words to mean the same things. That … Continue reading Say the Same Words. Mean the Same Things.

Steering Committees: Engaging Stakeholders for Guidance, Commitment, and Growth

By Peter DiGiammarino

Note: A complementary reading for MtL Module 8 Get Help Leaders who “get help” know success comes not from going it alone but from surrounding themselves with structures that strengthen thinking, accountability, and action. In Manage to Lead, we emphasize the value of an Accountability Board, Advisory Board, Coach, and Peer Group. There is another … Continue reading Steering Committees: Engaging Stakeholders for Guidance, Commitment, and Growth

How organization leaders can make important changes while also developing the next generation of leaders.

By Peter DiGiammarino | October 22, 2012

Every organization has room to improve.  Most organization leaders know improvement is needed as well as how specifically they would like to evolve but do not have the time or energy to bring their clear ideas to fruition because they are short on leadership capacity. There is almost always a great deal of untapped capacity … Continue reading How organization leaders can make important changes while also developing the next generation of leaders.

How to find free, simple, and effective ways to optimize employee performance.

By Peter DiGiammarino | September 27, 2012

Jose Luis Romero, who lives and works in Mexico and who is an expert in the area of Employee Performance Optimization, teaches middle and upper level managers free, simple and the most effective ways to optimize employee performance. Jose Luis’ content is interesting and useful. For example, see his collection of mission statements and subscribe to his “Leader Newsletter” to receive … Continue reading How to find free, simple, and effective ways to optimize employee performance.

How entering executives can increase the odds of successful transition.

By Peter DiGiammarino | September 14, 2012

Fast-growing and otherwise successful organizations often outpace the rate at which they can groom and grow senior executives to keep up with the need to guide and govern increased scale and complexity of operations. Consequently, they bring top talent in from the outside. As outlined in a previous IntelliVen post, a senior hire is hardly … Continue reading How entering executives can increase the odds of successful transition.

How to talk about leaders and organizations for success.

By Peter DiGiammarino | September 2, 2012

Those in charge of any organization for success — no matter how large or small — and those who aspire to hold leadership roles, are wise to use terms and phrases in precise ways in order to be clear about what they think, say, and do.  This post compiles a number of such terms in one … Continue reading How to talk about leaders and organizations for success.

How to use meeting ground rules to shape behavior and improve performance.

By Peter DiGiammarino | August 29, 2012

High-performing leaders act intentionally. Meeting ground rules help a team consider and decide how they want to behave with each other in meetings and in general. Meetings become a place in which to establish and work on target behaviors. Meeting Owners (see: How to Run a Great Meeting/) on their own, with their team (see: … Continue reading How to use meeting ground rules to shape behavior and improve performance.

What an organization must do in order to perform and grow.

By Peter DiGiammarino | August 17, 2012

Imagine: An organization that does not know how it will meet the demands of its current customers, or An organization that has no idea where its next customer will come from, or An organization that does not know how it will acquire resources needed to meet a surge in demand. Such organizations exist and they … Continue reading What an organization must do in order to perform and grow.

How growing organizations should go about adding systems and processes.

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 27, 2012

One way to think about an organization is in terms of both how good it is at doing what it does, that is its effectiveness, and how mature are its systems and processes for doing what it does.  Figure-1 shows a way to map organizations into a framework that uses both dimensions.

The next big lift in performance!

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 20, 2012

For decades organizations have sought and achieved productivity and performance improvement through information technology and process engineering initiatives. While these efforts streamlined and automated what organizations do to provide services and products, they failed to address many people and organization needs along the way. As a result, we still have a long way to go … Continue reading The next big lift in performance!

How marketing can turn a prospect into a customer.

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 13, 2012

A good way to think about marketing is to consider it a four-stage process that goes from Prospect to Customer.  Each stage has a program of marketing activities that move a prospect along the path to a sale. Attract activities make a broad audience of possible prospective customers aware of the selling organization and promote its Capture activities. … Continue reading How marketing can turn a prospect into a customer.

How to decide who to sell to next.

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 5, 2012

An organization needs customers to serve.  Without customers the organization has no reason to exist.  The ideal customer: Has the problem the organization solves.  There is no point selling a solution for which the prospect has no need.  If a prospect does not need the solution, organization leaders might be tempted to solve a problem other than … Continue reading How to decide who to sell to next.

How to be a good group facilitator to help your organization and to grow as a leader when the opportunity presents itself.

By Peter DiGiammarino | June 15, 2012

Serving as a group facilitator at a workshop is an important assignment that can help make the difference between the session being a big success or not.  It is also an opportunity to be, and to grow as, a visible leader.  Do not pass up the opportunity to rise to the occasion and to do … Continue reading How to be a good group facilitator to help your organization and to grow as a leader when the opportunity presents itself.

How to get ahead by working well with people who are at more senior levels in organizations you work with.

By Peter DiGiammarino | June 7, 2012

Early-stage professionals should look forward to and take advantage of opportunities to interact with people in client, partner, or supplier organizations at more senior levels of scope and scale of responsibility than they are used to working with.  While it might initially be difficult to muster the courage and conviction to play at a higher level, … Continue reading How to get ahead by working well with people who are at more senior levels in organizations you work with.