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How organizations evolve.
There are three to keep in mind with respect to how organizations evolve. There Is No One Right Organization The organization that will work is the one a group decides to make work, after much study and debate, despite its flaws. It is easy to make any organization fail. It is harder to make one … Continue reading How organizations evolve.
How to make sure every top team member does one thing right.
CEOs should consider the following when assigning tasks to leadership team members: Members of the leadership team are likely to be the most capable people in the organization and therefore among the most important to deploy optimally. Each needs to be especially clear about what is most important for them to do and then spend … Continue reading How to make sure every top team member does one thing right.
Role Clarity
The CEO of a successful organization ensures that their inner circle of leaders, or Core Leadership Team, are individually and collectively clear about their relative strengths and on what the group counts on from each of them to be successful. The exercise below is a structured and straightforward way to make expectations explicit and to … Continue reading Role Clarity
Form a Core Leadership Team to guide and drive peak performance.
No one leader, and not even any two, has the breadth of competence and depth of capacity to do anything of much significance alone. Successful organizations usually have a core leadership team of three to seven top executives who are diverse in terms of skills, perspective, and experience yet aligned in an unyielding pursuit of … Continue reading Form a Core Leadership Team to guide and drive peak performance.
How to increase the accuracy of revenue forecasts.
Revenue Forecasts asserts that a certain amount of revenue will be earned in a certain period of time with a certain probability that the actual revenue earned in the period will be within a certain tolerance of the forecast. For example, management may forecast that there is a 90% chance of actual revenue being not … Continue reading How to increase the accuracy of revenue forecasts.
Personal Alignment
Great leaders learn what each direct report likes to do and what s/he is good at doing in order to help each decide to want to do what s/he is good at and likes doing. It is worth the considerable effort and thoughtful analysis required because it increases the odds of executive engagement, happiness, and high-performance . … Continue reading Personal Alignment
Know the definition of strategy to help everyone stay on the same page.
The following are definitions of phrases that use the word strategy. They provide a useful way to think about the term and matters directly related to it: Strategy is what people in an organization plan to do in order to “win” whatever game they are playing. Strategic thinking is how decisions and actions are made … Continue reading Know the definition of strategy to help everyone stay on the same page.
UMass Commonwealth Honors College Awards Presentation Dinner Speaker
UMass Commonwealth Honors College Awards Presentation Whether on campus or in the workplace, effective leadership involves seven disarmingly simple truths, says alumnus Peter F. DiGiammarino ’75. As the Eleanor Bateman Alumni Scholar in Residence for spring 2012, DiGiammarino led two events during which he offered advice on becoming an effective leader. Leaders, he explained, “get loose.” Top … Continue reading UMass Commonwealth Honors College Awards Presentation Dinner Speaker
University of Massachusetts 2012 Bateman Scholar in Residence Public Lecture
At University of Massachusetts 2012 Bateman Scholar Public Lecture, IntelliVen founder and CEO PeterD presented a 45 minute lecture that summarizes 35 years of insight gleaned from successfully helping dozens of organizations get on track to long-term growth and performance, generally in the role of leader or an adviser to the founder, owner, investor, and/or the CEO of … Continue reading University of Massachusetts 2012 Bateman Scholar in Residence Public Lecture
Five Questions to Outline Organization Strategy
WHAT IS STRATEGY? There are many ways to use the word strategy and it conjures up different things for different people in different contexts. What for example is the difference between strategic thinking and a strategic initiative and strategic planning? (For an answer see this taxonomy of strategic terms.) Leaders who are asked: “What is your strategy?” … Continue reading Five Questions to Outline Organization Strategy
How leaders should think about the importance of determining what is most important to change next.
Over time, organizations perform at some level. After start-up things fall into place leading to a period of rapid growth. The rate of growth eventually slows and then plateaus perhaps due to new technology that spawns competition or maybe due to the organization slowing down in the face of its increased scope, scale, and complexity … Continue reading How leaders should think about the importance of determining what is most important to change next.