Note from Art: One of my professional goals this year is to do a better job sharing insights and perspectives from a broad range of great leadership and management writers and thinkers.  Every Friday, I will share my three favorites for the week.  This week, I’m including content on transforming yourself, testing your strategy and turning some of the disasters of 2010 into great lessons for 2011. Enjoy!

-From David Meerman Scott at WebInkNow: “Transforming Your Business and Yourself in 2011.”

From the post: You don’t have to accept the label others have put on you. You don’t have to limit your company by a label like “B2B” or “auto industry.” Forget terms like lawyer, consultant, writer, singer, graphic designer. What interests you? What do you love to do? Why not make that part of your work too!

Art’s Comment: While the world is filled with “New Year” posts, this one from the gentleman helping to rewrite and educate us all on the new rules of marketing, is particularly relevant for many of us. David describes his own multiple professional transformations and he offers some great additional examples from others who have done the same.  Check out the post, and subscribe for regular marketing stimulation!

-Mckinsey & Company published an important article based on extensive survey work, entitled, Have You Tested Your Strategy Lately?” (registration may be required)

From the article: “Ultimately, strategy is a way of thinking, not a procedural exercise or a set of frameworks. To stimulate that thinking and the dialogue that goes along with it, we developed a set of tests aimed at helping executives assess the strength of their strategies.”

And:

“Most companies’ strategies pass fewer than 4 of the ten tests.”

Art’s Comment: Yikes. Four out of ten? Double-Yikes.  For a concise summary, check out “10 Tests to Assess Your Strategy“ at Baldrige.com by Steve George. (If you are not familiar with Steve and his site, spend some time checking out the powerful content and resources!)

-From Rosabeth Moss Kanter, writing at the Harvard Business Review blogs: “Five Lessons from 2010 Worth Repeating, Without Repeating 2010.”

From the post: “Before 2010 is dumped into the dustbin of history — and it was a year when cleaning up after disasters was not just a metaphor — it’s worth finding the gems among the trash.”

Art’s Comment: Ms. Kanter consistently provides illuminating and thought-provoking commentary on a wide range of topics in leadership and management.  This particular post helps translate some of the disasters of the past year into golden learning opportunities.  I’m good with learning from disasters!

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OK, that’s a wrap for this first working week of 2011. Congratulations, you made it!

The next issue of Leadership Caffeine will be posted Monday, and stay tuned for the launch of what is shaping up to be a blog-based leadership and management soap-opera, complete with audience involvement!

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Art develops and delivers powerful and pragmatic workshops and programs on leadership, professional development and building high performance teams. Contact Art to discuss your needs for a program or keynote. And whether you are an experienced leader seeking to revitalize and develop as a professional, or, a new leader looking for guidance on starting up successfully, check out Art’s book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership at Amazon.com.