Blog

How Our Brains’ Hidden Process Can Sabotage Feedback

By Peter DiGiammarino

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 brains works. Our brains make 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?

The #1 problem with teams is not what you think

By Peter DiGiammarino

Every leader needs to know that they and their team agree on the problem they solve for whom. While this seems simple enough, in practice almost nobody in their organization answers in exactly the same way, and even small differences can disrupt operations. Examples, practice cases, and your own case reveal that even well-known firms … Continue reading The #1 problem with teams is not what you think

How to Access Manage to Lead System Workstreams and Tutorials

By Peter DiGiammarino

Manage to Lead (MtL) is a system of integrated tools, methods, and principles that executive teams use to pave and follow a reliable path to architect, build, govern, and change their organization for breakthrough improvements in performance and growth. Users frequently comment on how helpful MtL Tools are when preparing: A Business Plan An Investor … Continue reading How to Access Manage to Lead System Workstreams and Tutorials

Driving new growth: Don’t assume your team’s skills are right for what’s next

By Peter DiGiammarino

In mountain climbing, reaching a mid-mountain plateau is not as fulfilling as ascending to the summit. Rarely will any climber start out to scale a mountain with the idea of stopping at a plateau below the summit. But in planning the assault on the mountain, veteran climbers know that different skills and capabilities are needed … Continue reading Driving new growth: Don’t assume your team’s skills are right for what’s next

Achieve Breakthrough Performance with More Effective Leadership

By Peter DiGiammarino

Growth is good. But growth can be really hard. Maybe your organization’s growth has plateaued. Why has it stalled? Is the issue in strategy, alignment, execution, backlog, or capacity? Maybe all these areas? Or maybe you have the opposite problem, and growth is exploding and your team can’t keep up. What needs to change to … Continue reading Achieve Breakthrough Performance with More Effective Leadership

UMass Amherst announces affiliation with IntelliVen

By Peter DiGiammarino

September 9, 2020 AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced a new collaboration with IntelliVen, a leading executive team development organization, to provide interactive, remote learning programs designed to raise the performance and effectiveness of leadership teams. The collaboration represents another step in developing a robust portfolio of options for UMass Amherst alumni … Continue reading UMass Amherst announces affiliation with IntelliVen

3 Truths and 6 Power Skills to Master Organization Politics

By Peter DiGiammarino

Organization politics make a lot of people uncomfortable. The untrained hope is that if politics are ignored, and if a job is done well, then well-earned rewards will come. Things rarely play out that way.

Case: The Ideal Mix of Sr. Executive Team Skills for Success

By Dr. Brent Green

Do you know what your fellow executives need to do to improve but lack the time, training, and skill to share what you know?

Here’s a fast and easy way for executives to tell each other what s/he needs to know to improve.

leader

How Leaders Learn From Those With a Stake in Their Success

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 24, 2020

There is now even more change in how leaders and followers relate. Specifically, we see more emphasis on a leader’s capacity to build and sustain an inclusive and high-trust relationship with a loyal, capable, and motivated followership.

pen is mighty

How to Make Meetings Powerful Using a Pen

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 22, 2020

There really is “power in the pen”.  The person who takes notes on meeting and then drafts and distributes the Meeting Record is demonstrating leadership.

3 Levels of Human Identity Can Be Used to Build Relationships Across Difference

By Peter DiGiammarino | July 19, 2020

To start, it helps to have common language and frameworks that make it possible to understand the complexities of communication dynamics posed by working across social group identities such as age, ability, gender, culture, class, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.

board power

Board Power! A Guide to Improve Board Performance

By Peter DiGiammarino | June 28, 2020

There is a lot more value that can be derived from working with the board but it takes a lot of work in building, cultivating, and working with boards.

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What makes an exceptional W-W-W

By Eric Palmer | June 27, 2020

The purpose of a business is to solve a problem for a customer…which drives every leadership team to align on its WWW; that is on WHAT their organization provides to WHO and WHY customers buy it from them.

operating group meeting

How to Run Operating Meetings

By Peter DiGiammarino | June 27, 2020

An IntelliVen CEO client recently put it this way: “It’s easy to make great progress when you weren’t doing much in the first place” when commenting on the lift in performance experienced after tweaking the approach to running his organization’s weekly Operating Group Meeting.

3 Tips and Four C’s to Raise a leader’s Communication game

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 29, 2020

Your voice speaks volumes about your confidence level, your education, socioeconomic stature, and your roots. And your voice can be managed to help you be a more effective leader.

ask the learning community

4 Steps to Tap Into the Power of The Learning Community

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 15, 2020

There is now a featured post at the top of the IntelliVen LinkedIn Company Page called Ask the Learning Community. Every Friday we will post a question or situation submitted by an ILC member. You are invited to enter a comment to share your reaction, suggestions, experience, wisdom, and/or resources. This post explains the mechanics you need to know to participate. Don’t hesitate to jump in and give it a try. As always, your feedback and suggestions are most welcome.

develop a vision

How to set direction when the leader is not sure where to head next

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 10, 2020

Leaders set direction, align resources, and motivate action as suggested by the panels in Figure 1.  Another way to put it is that a leader develops, holds, nurtures, communicates, and drives to achieve a vision.

Corporate governance concept. Business leadership, managing skills, leadership training plan and success achievement.

How to connect the Top-of-the-House to the FrontLine

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 8, 2020

When top leaders are informed, thinking critically, and engaged enough to provide guidance and direction, things tend to go pretty well.  That is, things get done better, sooner, and more smoothly when leaders pay attention. 

levels of executive management

How emerging executives can achieve high-impact with key players more senior than themselves.

By Peter DiGiammarino | May 4, 2020

An up-and-coming executive engages with an important sales prospect, client, supplier, partner, or colleague on par with his or her degree of comfort and security with the other party. The more seniority the other is perceived to have relative to his/her own, the more anxiety and insecurity is induced, the less is said, and the … Continue reading How emerging executives can achieve high-impact with key players more senior than themselves.

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IntelliVen Launches Initiative to Support Learning Community on LinkedIn

By Peter DiGiammarino | April 16, 2020

We have launched an initiative to cultivate the IntelliVen Learning Community through the IntelliVen Company Page on LinkedIn: “Ask the Learning Community”. Follow the company page on LinkedIn to enjoy the content and join the discussion.