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

3 Truths and 6 Power Skills to Master Organization Politics

By Peter DiGiammarino | August 16, 2020

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 | August 11, 2020

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.

Ten Steps to Drive Change from the Inside

By Peter DiGiammarino | August 8, 2020

If you are frustrated by an organization resistant to embracing a change you believe is right, consider using the following steps as a road map to seeing your ideas through to reality.

Private Equity investors leverage intelligence as well as Dollars

By Peter DiGiammarino | August 4, 2020

Private equity (PE) investors have come a long way since they first appeared shortly after World War II. Their initial edge was their ability to do financial engineering where debt was used to make every dollar invested (note, invested dollars are called equity) generate a return multiple times what was originally invested (a.k.a.: multiple of … Continue reading Private Equity investors leverage intelligence as well as Dollars

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.

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.

A Practical Guide to Building and Running a High-Performing Board

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.

What makes an exceptional W-W-W

By Peter DiGiammarino | 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.

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.

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.