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

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.

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. 

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.

Key to Operating Success in a Crisis

By Peter DiGiammarino | April 2, 2020

With baby boomers entering their last stages, Private Equity invested in senior residences ahead of the certain increase in demand as an aging population would surely seek community, comfort, support, and safety from communal living. COVID-19 changed the calculus overnight. WeWork and Airbnb represent two more niches that are forever changed…as are many more.

WORK FROM HOME PRACTICES THAT WORK

By Ian Sander | March 11, 2020

With COVID-19 driving so many to work remotely, we want to share tips and best practices collected from having worked remotely almost exclusively over the past few years as well as from recent research. Our goal is to maintain high performance for members of our community while fostering safe, productive, and sustainable working conditions for … Continue reading WORK FROM HOME PRACTICES THAT WORK

The importance of executive leadership team meetings and how to run them

By Peter DiGiammarino | March 3, 2020

Executive Leadership Team meetings are critical to a business achieving scale. Even with infinite grit, determination, drive, and brilliance, leadership responsibilities must eventually be assigned such that a system to keep things coming together for collective leadership attention is required.

Tips to consultants helping organization leaders create THEIR WHAT-WHO-WHY

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 23, 2020

Before leaders set out to change their organization, it helps to be ready to change. To get ready to change, leaders should be clear about their organization as it currently exists. A good place for them to start is with their organization’s purpose. The purpose of an organization is to solve a problem for a … Continue reading Tips to consultants helping organization leaders create THEIR WHAT-WHO-WHY

Long-time IntelliVen Client Enrolls Five Teams in Exclusive Manage to Lead Immersion Program Cohort

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 14, 2020

A Washington DC based management consulting firm that helps organizations experiencing disruption to set their strategy and then align their culture with that strategy to achieve breakthrough performance improvement has chosen Manage to Lead as a foundational component of their leadership development and client delivery methodology.

Former student named one of 100 fastest growing inner-city businesses

By Peter DiGiammarino | February 3, 2020

We are humbled and honored to be a part of Pete Merzbacher’s journey and for his kind words towards me and the IntelliVen team.

How to get a rogue team member back on board without drama or disruption

By Peter DiGiammarino | January 7, 2020

Every leader eventually finds they have a toxic executive team member who behaves poorly, spreads discontent, or otherwise goes off track and holds the core leadership team, and the organization, hostage indefinitely.  As the leader, it is up to you to do something, but you avoid confronting the offender perhaps because you are averse to … Continue reading How to get a rogue team member back on board without drama or disruption

Case Study: Cracking the Execution Code at Compusearch Software Systems

By Peter DiGiammarino | December 3, 2019

Compusearch had always been an innovative company but operations needed to mature. Here’s the story behind how the management team, working with The Carlyle Group and IntelliVen, got clear, aligned, and grew to be sold for ~4X invested capital in 5 years.

PowerTips Unscripted: Peter DiGiammarino — Get Clear. Align. Grow.

By Peter DiGiammarino | November 30, 2019

Episode blurb IntelliVen Principal Peter DiGiammarino joins hosts Mark and Victoria to unpack core ideas from “Manage to Lead: Seven Truths”—how leaders get clear, get aligned, and turn strategy into results. Peter also shares the education and career milestones that shaped the MtL approach and today’s Strategic Leadership Immersion Program. What listeners will learn The … Continue reading PowerTips Unscripted: Peter DiGiammarino — Get Clear. Align. Grow.