The Leadership Caffeine Blog
When Your “Ask” Runs Into a Brick Wall— Find the Loose Brick
Shameless flattery: the brick wall/loose brick statement in the title is paraphrased from Keith Ferrazzi's foreword to Just Listen by Mark Goulston. -- Imagine you invested a great deal of time doing the background research, compiling the data, and building your...
When Your “Ask” Runs Into a Brick Wall— Find the Loose Brick
People resist anything that threatens their autonomy and safety. Quit leading with what you need and start focusing on what’s important to them, and you’ll watch resistance melt.
What Lincoln Might Have Advised Before Sending that Angry e-mail
More than a few people I know (present company included) have created a problem for themselves by prematurely hitting the “send” button on an e-mail written out of anger or frustration. Once sent, the damage is done and these instantaneous communications have a long shelf life in the memories of the recipients. Here are 6 ideas the Rail-Splitter himself might have approved of for the toughest of communication situations:
New Leader Tuesday-7 Ideas to Help You Survive Your Sink or Swim Leadership Lessons
There was a time when prevailing wisdom for teaching people to swim involved chucking them in the water and letting them flail and flounder. This Sink or Swim (S. o. S.) method of teaching is likely responsible for more than a few really bad moments for the unwitting victims and a lifetime of terror-inducing flashbacks for many. Oddly, we subject a good number of first time supervisors and managers to a similar rite of passage in what I describe as S. o. S. Leadership Development. If you are on the receiving end of this method of new leaders development, here are 7 suggestions to help make the swim a bit more bearable:
Myths and Realities of Senior Management Teams
There are few environments more hostile to forming something resembling a functional team, than a group of people comprised of senior managers. Whether you are a member of one of these groups or the CEO in charge, it’s healthy to recognize some of the facts and myths of senior management teams and adapt your behaviors and approaches accordingly.
Just One Thing-Strive to Be a Better Team Participant
There are shelves of books and countless blog posts out there on improving team performance. Last I checked, there isn’t much for us to consume on the topic of improving our performance as team and project participants. Here are 12 ideas on to improve your participation and potentially raise the performance of everyone around you.
7 Ideas to Enhance Your Career During Your Firm’s Strategic Planning Process
If you are tapped to participate in your firm’s strategic planning process, it’s important to approach this work as a career building opportunity, and not simply “more work” piled on top of your already overloaded schedule. Here are 7 Ideas to help you leverage this great opportunity:
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast-J. Keith Murnighan on Do Nothing!
Kellogg Professor and author, J. Keith Murnighan, offers up some fascinating and occasionally counter-intuitive (and research backed) ideas in Do Nothing! How to Stop Overmanaging and Become a Great Leader. This is a fun and eminently useful leadership read!
New Leader Tuesday-How to Be Viewed as a Jerk from Day One
The bookshelves and blog posts are filled with great advice on how to lead effectively, yet, mostly what I hear in workshops and classrooms are the stories of the lousy habits of Grade A Jerks. Since there are clearly many people who aspire to this lofty level in the world of Jerks, I thought I would make your job just a bit easier by offering up this starter list. Here are 14 ideas guaranteed to help you succeed in being viewed as a Grade A Jerk:
Leadership Caffeine™-The Case for Hiring Outside the Lines of Your Industry
It’s often politically unpopular and seemingly risky to hire for a key role outside of the boundaries of your firm’s industry. It also might be just the right thing to infuse your team or organization with fresh perspectives and new ideas.
New Leader Tuesday: Trust Feeds Respect and Builds Performance
Respect. It’s a complex concept filled, filled with nuance and subtlety and gesture, all buried in a simple word. Most of us are wired to appreciate respect and to reciprocate in kind. And vice-versa. One of the most powerful and effective ways to show respect is to extend our trust. Of course, for all of us, particularly new leaders, that feels risky and almost counter-intuitive. It’s not.