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	<title>Management Excellence</title>
	<link>http://artpetty.com</link>
	<description>Ideas and approaches in business performance excellence.  </description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:06:14 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>At Least 20 Things to Stop Doing as a Leader</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I love this quote from Peter Drucker: “We spend a lot of time teaching our leaders what to do.  We don’t spend enough time teaching them what to stop.” Here’s my small contribution on what to “stop doing” immediately.  Please add your suggestions to the list.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/09/02/at-least-20-things-to-stop-doing-as-a-leader/</link>
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		<title>Management Excellence Book Series Podcast: Strategic Speed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I had the good fortune to connect recently with Jocelyn Davis, one of the co-authors (along with Henry Frechette, Jr., and Edwin Boswell) of Strategic Speed, for an interview, where we discussed the high failure rate of strategies, the meaning of "strategic speed," and a number of other issues important to anyone interested in improving strategy execution. Jocelyn's insights into the book and the world of strategy and leadership were fascinating.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/31/management-excellence-book-series-podcast-strategic-speed/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: The Noble Pursuit of Power and Influence</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Power and influence are not dirty words. Both are components of every organization’s environment and both must be carefully cultivated to succeed as a formal or informal leader. Power and influence provide the motive power behind organizations and initiatives and the lubrication that keeps the parts and people from binding and grinding and self-destructing. Here are 6 key reasons why cultivating power and influence is good for your career.  ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/30/leadership-caffeine-the-noble-pursuit-of-power-and-influence/</link>
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		<title>Finding Time to Focus or, Speed Kills</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The lot of professionals inside many organizations can easily be characterized by a series of endless status meetings, hurried hallway conversations and messages quickly dispatched on a pda while walking, ignoring the meeting in process or consuming a protein bar on the run. Nonetheless, work gets done, customers are served and growth often created. I do however, worry and wonder about the human costs and the cost to the organization in lost-ideas, missed opportunities and a much more superficial existence.
]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/25/finding-time-to-focus-or-speed-kills/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine-Give Your People Room to Run</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Overheard: “If I don’t stay on top of my people, nothing gets done.” If lousy leadership were a crime, the owner of the quote above might just merit a short stretch of quality alone-time to reflect on the implications of his statement.  There are so many things truly wrong with the style of leadership that the statement connotes, that I’m not certain where to start. 

Here are 11 reminders that your job as a leader is to give people the room and tools to succeed.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/23/leadership-caffeine-give-your-people-room-to-run/</link>
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		<title>Beware Context Canyon When It Comes to Leading Change</title>
		<description><![CDATA[We invest a great deal of time talking and writing and preaching about change.  We discuss resistance to change, fear of change, our own need for personal change and the challenges that organizations face when it comes to embracing change. We're not very good at changing, but we sure like to talk about it.
]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/19/beware-context-canyon-when-it-comes-to-leading-change/</link>
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		<title>Management Excellence Book Series Kicks Off Featuring Good Boss, Bad Boss</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to the first post and first interview for the Management Excellence Book Series, where I feature Bob Sutton, New York Times best-selling author and author of the forthcoming book Good Boss, Bad Boss.  I had the great fortune to connect with Bob recently on a phone call/interview, and our scheduled 10-15 minutes turned into 30 minutes of fascinating insights about the book, and about Bob’s work as a professor and consultant.  He was a delight to interview and I sincerely believe that you will find his insights and anecdotes as fascinating as I did.  Enjoy the interview and enjoy the book!]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/17/management-excellence-book-series-kicks-off-featuring-good-boss-bad-boss/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: 5 Ideas for Infusing Fun Into the Workplace</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You heard it here first.  It’s OK to Have Some Fun as a Leader. Most of the popular press on leading and leadership focuses on the challenges, strain and pains of leading, leaving one to assume that signing on for the role is akin to a vow of chastity or at least a vow of silence.  Here are 5 ideas for safely infusing more fun into your workplace.  The increase in performance might just surprise you.  ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/16/leadership-caffeine-5-ideas-for-infusing-fun-into-the-workplace/</link>
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		<title>Art&#8217;s Updates and Coming Attractions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This has been a productive period for my development of new programs and information offerings.  While we all write and talk about the impact of great people on our organizations, it is truly palpable when you are on the receiving end of that help. Thanks to two outstanding young professionals, Eric and Amber, that are busy helping and holding me accountable to getting my work done, we’re adding new programs, tuning up prior offerings and extending our line-up of information products.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/14/arts-updates-and-coming-attractions/</link>
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		<title>The Pursuit of Power and the Misguided Leadership Literature</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Jeffrey Pfeffer’s article, Power Play, in the July-August Harvard Business Review (fee) is interesting and relevant for everyone working inside organizations as well as for those individuals actively engaged in the development of leadership literature and course-work. Pfeffer tackles the important topic of power.  How to gain it, how to wield it, and in his opinion, why those that actively cultivate power are more effective at driving change and implementing a new strategy.  He also suggests that the leadership literature is soft-selling or ignoring this very real and important part of organizational life. ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/13/the-pursuit-of-power-and-the-misguided-leadership-literature/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: Quit Managing Reduced Expectations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A great friend and talented product manager once offered in a moment of frustration that he viewed his principal job as one of “managing reduced expectations.”  This brilliant, but depressing turn of words reflected bigger business problems, including a logjam in development that effectively precluded us from doing anything to enhance the competitiveness of  our products in a timeframe shorter than something that you might find on a geologic time-scale. The “managing reduced expectations” seems to be a theme inherent in our society right now, and it is a dangerous mind-set. ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/10/leadership-caffeine-quit-managing-reduced-expectations/</link>
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		<title>The Kids are Alright-Leadership Lessons from the Youngest Workers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Chances are, we've all read about and heard from mid-career managers complaining about the younger generation entering the workforce. The “don’t want to pay their dues,” and “you can’t pry them away from their PDAs,” and “poor work ethic” laments are in my opinion, lame copouts by managers stuck in their own inflexible ways. There’s good and bad in every generation, it’s just that this one feels different, because it is.  ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/09/the-kids-are-alright-leadership-lessons-from-the-youngest-workers/</link>
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		<title>The Career Enhancing Benefits of Message Mapping</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Critical communication situations demand crystal clarity. With apologies for my abusive but personally amusing alliteration above, I’m banging the drum again on the need for all of us to carefully form and frame our messages before we open our mouths and trip on our tongues.
]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/04/the-career-enhancing-benefits-of-message-mapping/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: 4 Signs that Your Leadership Approach is Working</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Most leaders struggle to understand whether they are helping or hindering the cause.  Except of course for those leaders/narcissists who believe that their every utterance is sheer genius wrapped in pure motivational gold. The feedback from your manager, while important, tends to be based on either numbers or fairly casual observation.  And feedback from your team members is welcomed, but you never really know for sure whether it’s the unvarnished type. The “Am I Helping?” issue is particularly important when a troubled team or organization gains a fresh leader. Here are 4 measures that will help you gauge whether you are truly helping or hindering:]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/02/leadership-caffeine-4-signs-that-your-leadership-approach-is-working/</link>
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		<title>August, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Many thanks to Jason Seiden for hosting the August Leadership Development Carnival. The Carnivals are outstanding opportunities to sample the favorite posts of some of your favorite leadership and business bloggers and to discover some great new talent.  I'm grateful to Jason for running my recent post on Decision-Making along with so many outstanding contributions from other bloggers.  Have fun, enjoy the blog and stay for Jason's great content!  ]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/08/01/august-2010-leadership-development-carnival/</link>
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		<title>Innovation is Everyone’s Business</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Take a poll in your firm on whether people feel responsible for innovation in their jobs or in their departments, and I’ll offer an educated guess on the outcome. Those involved in engineering, design, marketing and product management will feel a strong sense of responsibility to innovate.  For others in supporting or operations-focused roles, the need or ability to innovate will be rated towards the low end of perceived priorities or even capabilities. That’s a shame.  A good innovator and good innovations are terrible things to waste, regardless of functional role.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/28/innovation-is-everyone%e2%80%99s-business/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Inspiration from the Howard Schultz HBR Interview</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you’re looking for a breath of fresh leadership air and some hope in this world after watching CEOs doing the Perp Walk or the Resignation Shuffle, read the interview, "We Had to Own the Mistakes" with Howard Schultz, Starbucks Chairman and CEO, in the July-August, 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review. While Schultz is no stranger to our world as an iconic founder of one of the world’s most successful and formerly fastest growing firms, one might argue that he didn’t earn his leadership stripes until faced with the unexpected challenging of turning the firm around.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/27/leadership-inspiration-from-the-howard-schultz-hbr-interview/</link>
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		<title>The Triple Threat to Good Decisions: Data, Time and Emotion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There are few situations more challenging to teams than dealing with a tough, emotionally-charged issue and decision-choice while facing significant time pressure and seemingly contradictory data. If that type of situation sounds uncommon or unrealistic, consider that many firms and management teams make critical priority calls and strategic choices under just such circumstances.  The decision to launch Challenger was a prime example, with all three factors playing a huge role in this tragic call.  Countless corporate strategic misfires owe their outcome to this triple-threat of data, time and emotion. While many situations don’t involve life-safety issues, this triple-threat is something that every manager should be critically sensitive to in their group and strategic decision-making.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/22/the-triple-threat-to-good-decisions-data-time-and-emotion/</link>
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		<title>Team Conflict? As Long as It’s Not Personal, Run With It</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m leery of happy teams.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like positive experiences and working with happy people, however, in my experience, the happy teams are the ones that produce mediocre results or, they don’t produce at all. Give me a group of people that show up to do battle on the issues versus the team that strives for peace and harmony, any day.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/21/team-conflict-as-long-as-it%e2%80%99s-not-personal-run-with-it/</link>
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		<title>The July Management Excellence Newsletter &amp; Free Books</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The July issue of The Management Excellence e-Newsletter is out, with subscriber-only content. The current issue includes content on: Improving Ideation &#038; Creativity with Your Team, Surviving and Thriving at the Dreaded Annual Strategy Off-Site, Ideas for Jump-Starting Your Personal/Professional Development Program, New Suggestions for the Management Excellence Reading List and 
a tasteful promotion at the bottom of the newsletter outlining new beta test opportunities for upcoming Building Better Leaders programs and other services.  (Hey, I am in business here!)

If you're not a subscriber, please consider signing on and gaining access to content and opportunities not covered on my blogs.  As always, I will guard your e-mail information with amazing ferocity!]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/20/the-july-management-excellence-newsletter-free-books/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: 6 Ideas to Improve Team Performance Today</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If your organization is like most, you’re leaving money on the table in terms of team productivity and performance. Social and interpersonal factors, motivation issues, lack of group cohesion and the general up-front churn that teams display as they form, are just a few of the areas where you can pick up immediate productivity improvements with a little bit of smart leadership.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/19/leadership-caffeine-6-ideas-to-improve-team-performance-today/</link>
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		<title>A Vote for Impracticality in Pursuit of Mid-Life Renewal</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the reasons that I love working with early career professionals is that many of them still believe that they are going to change the world in their own small or very large way.  If only we could bottle some of these early dreams and tap into them later in life.  
]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/15/a-vote-for-impracticality-in-pursuit-of-mid-life-renewal/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: Developing as a Senior Contributor</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I regularly use the label “Senior Contributor” (SC) to reference a state of management maturity that tends to exist somewhere between upper mid-level management or senior knowledge worker and the executive layer. The SC is a professional (manager or individual contributor) on the brink of executive qualifications and someone that has displayed effective formal and informal leadership skills, value-creating critical and strategic thinking abilities, credible executive presence and a strong operating and quality orientation.
]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/11/leadership-caffeine-developing-as-a-senior-contributor/</link>
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		<title>6 Steps for Avoiding Groupthink on Your Team</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Groupthink is one of the nefarious decision-making missteps of teams, and a trap that many smart people and groups have fallen victim to throughout history. From the classic example cited in nearly every discussion on decision-making, the Kennedy administration’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, to Ford’s launch of the Edsel, to Neviille Chamberlin’s inner circle that believed peace with Hitler was at hand, Groupthink has earned a prominent place in our culture. And while you might not be planning an invasion or negotiation with evil dictators or planning on launching an ugly automobile, chances are that Groupthink has show up from time to time in your professional world.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/08/6-steps-for-avoiding-groupthink-on-your-team/</link>
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		<title>Leadership Caffeine: Gut Check on Your Intestinal Fortitude</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Someone asked me the other day, whether there was one quality above all others that stuck out as essential for success as a leader?  Without hesitating, I responded, “intestinal fortitude.”  And while the question is not dissimilar to one of those impossible to answer but fun to speculate about debates that run endlessly on sports talk shows (e.g. Who was better, Aaron or Ruth?), I’m taking sides on this one.]]></description>
		<link>http://artpetty.com/2010/07/06/leadership-caffeine-gut-check-on-your-intestinal-fortitude/</link>
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