Wake-Up Calls for Managers
For the hard parts no one prepares you for
When the path isn’t clear, the stakes are high, and the answers aren’t obvious—this is where managers struggle most.
Wake-Up Calls for Managers delivers practical, real-world guidance for navigating:
- Tough conversations
- Leading through uncertainty
- Building influence without authority
- Driving results through others
The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Fall 2022 Leader and Manager Professional Development Programs
I hope your Summer has been filled with great experiences and enough downtime to focus on you and your family. Our family enjoyed a wonderful wedding in Italy and much time renovating our new residence. For many of you, it’s Back-to-School for your students. It’s also...
Fall 2022 Leader and Manager Professional Development Programs
It’s Back-to-Professional Development Time and I’m sharing my current Fall, 2022 calendar. If strengthening your skills as a leader or your success as a manager is on your priority list (or is a priority for your team members), please consider one of our uniquely powerful programs that blend training and coaching.
Introducing: Professional Development Sprints
Note from Art: today’s post is promotional in nature. Back to our regularly scheduled programming soon!
Professional Development Sprints: Practical, powerful coaching guidance and skills development plus a series of activities to apply immediately in the workplace, delivered on-line in 4 modules of 15 minutes or less. Review the programs as often as you desire during the 30-day subscription period, and use the suggestions in the downloadable Action Guide to keep on improving beyond the program.
Leadership Caffeine™: 9 Ideas to Help You Jump the Gap Between Failure and Success
People and teams fail on their way to success all of the time. That’s great. That’s how it’s supposed to work. The people and groups I struggle with are those who just fail. Often, the gap between failure and success appears wide, deep and ominous. This perceived gap keeps people frozen in place for a long while and then as time passes, fear turns to regret. Here are 9 ideas to help you jump the gap from failure to success.
Please Get the LinkedIn Invitation Right!
LinkedIn is an increasingly popular and powerful professional tool. Like many other professionals, I enjoy connecting with others via LinkedIn, and find it a remarkably useful tool for making new contacts, remaining in contact and conducting talent and firm research of all types. However, a pet peeve of mine is the generic invitations that I frequently receive from people I do and don’t know. Cut it out!
Seven Management Lessons Learned on Vacation
Fresh from a week at the lake with 11 people in residence and up to 35 people on our beach for a party at one point, it’s nice to reflect back on the fun, memories and of course to tie-in some lighter management and leadership lessons. Here are a few lessons that jump to mind after our most recent experience.
100 Miles for Life-A Cancer Assistance Fundraiser
Note from Art: While I’m not racing for 100 miles, my friend and professional colleague, Ted Friedman is, and I’m pleased to offer my support for his efforts. I’ve known Ted for a good number of years and we’ve continued our connection even though our professional lives have diverged. We also share an unfortunate common bond…we both lost a parent to cancer.
If you’ve lived through the loss of a loved one or colleague to this miserable disease, you are no doubt aware how critical the caregivers and assistance providers are to the patients and to the families during these battles. Ted recently described his cause and his approach to supporting and helping those in need of assistance, and I’m honored to share his story and encourage you to offer whatever support you can afford. -Art
Leadership Caffeine™: Do You See Beauty or Blemishes?
If you’ve ever worked for or around someone who is an expert critic…one of those individuals who can look at a masterpiece and spot a flaw, you know how demoralizing the experience can be. They look at beautiful pictures or great outcomes and focus on describing the flaws. Here are 5 ideas for improving performance by overcoming your own tendency to look for the blemishes.
Send in the Clones. The Abuse of “Must Have” in Recruiting and Hiring
Aside from a few obvious technical and vocational roles, there are very few positions in most organizations that absolutely “Must Have” someone who has held the identical role in the same industry with the same job. Nonetheless, the use of “Must Have” remains a staple in recruiting and hiring. It’s too bad, because over-reliance on “Must Have” can lead to a chronic case of mediocrity or worse, a terminal case of recycled bad ideas from industry participants.
7 Tips for Nailing Your Presentation to the Board of Directors
While some people view an invitation to present to the Board of Directors as a prison sentence (or worse), this truly can be a career enhancing opportunity. However, like any challenging situation, preparation and attitude are keys to success. Here are 7 tips to help ease your anxiety and ensure you stay focused on delivering a great presentation.
Leadership Caffeine™: 4 Ideas for Navigating Organizational Politics
Much like the notion of “pursuing power,” the idea of “playing politics” conjures up dirty images of questionable behind-the-scenes machinations and a vision of toes or faces being stepped on by those engaged in a series of less than noble games. And while those environments exist, it’s been my experience that the political environment in most firms is a bit more collegial than the television-type drama we often associate with organizational politics. Having said that, don’t confuse collegial with noble or even nice.
It’s important for all of us to tune-in to the political environment of our organizations and learn the unwritten rules of success. The four ideas below were prompted by my observations while running a long-term project inside a very successful and aggressive large company.