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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 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.
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.
How to give employees feedback while also showing they are known and appreciated.
In order for an organization to grow, it is important for each person who works there to get and stay on track to career success. Towards that end, an annual appraisal process evaluates each employee’s performance and growth and provides employees feedback, guidance, and direction for development. Less experienced leaders may count on managers to … Continue reading How to give employees feedback while also showing they are known and appreciated.
How Core Leaders get clear about what problem their organization solves for whom.
Core Leaders who all describe the problem their organization solves for whom in the same way are apt to provide more consistent guidance and direction and so increase the odds of better performance across the board. To get clear or to test for clarity, invite each Core Leader to: Read and reflect on background related … Continue reading How Core Leaders get clear about what problem their organization solves for whom.
How to think about where competencies that generate great value fit in organizations as they evolve.
The application of behavioral psychology to organizations over the past 60 years or so has given rise to Organization Development tools, methods, and principles. University programs and training labs have taught thousands of professionals in the rapidly evolving discipline. Many of those trained wonder where they fit in the organizations that employ them. To set … Continue reading How to think about where competencies that generate great value fit in organizations as they evolve.
Growth is Good and Money Matters
Some students preparing to enter the work force and some early-stage professionals launching their career seek lines of pursuit that steer clear of what they believe to be the seamy, cut-throat, greedy world of business. A course of study in, for example, Organization Development that leads to a career in Human Resources for a non-profit, … Continue reading Growth is Good and Money Matters