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How to decide who to sell to next.
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.
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.
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.
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