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
Leadership Caffeine™—Good Managers Observe The Characters, Not Just the Action
I love movies and books that are more about the characters and less about the action. I’m addicted to character study so much that when presented with the opportunity to watch an action movie (where character development is typically shallow) or do something tedious...
Leadership Caffeine™—Good Managers Observe The Characters, Not Just the Action
The best managers are devoted students of the art of character study—not out of some desire to play armchair psychologist, but rather out of the desire to help.
Leadership Caffeine™-The Artful and Effective Workplace Apology
The apology is an often over-looked and widely misunderstood tool for keeping smoldering bridges from burning out of control and for repairing relationships that were dented somewhere in the chaos of daily battle. It’s also a tool easily misused by people uncomfortable in their roles and seeking to buy compliance by apologizing their way forward.
Management Week in Review for March 12, 2011
Every week, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. This week’s selections feature content on the joy of work as a craft, responding to failure and exploring the latest thoughts from leading bloggers at the March Leadership Development Carnival.
The Millennial View: Fired for Facebook
Facebook is fun, but there are Millennials and many others that are oblivious that social media could cost them their career. I’ve seen profiles with pictures that look like a Jersey Shore party, people who use language that makes them sound like Eric Cartman, and I’ll never forget when a past acquaintance sent me a friend request. Their photo was a mug shot.
Management Excellence Toolkit-Part 3: How to Frame Your Decisions for Success
Your decisions define you as a leader and a manager, yet we spend very little time in our busy lives finding ways to improve our abilities in this area. This Management Excellence Toolkit Series will help you recognize the challenges and pitfalls of individual and group decision-making and offer ideas on improving performance for you and your co-workers. In this 3rd Part of an on-going series, we tackle the issue of properly framing issues to improve idea generation and decision development.
Leadership Caffeine™: When Leading is an Unnatural Act
One of the interesting outcomes I’ve observed when engaging truly thoughtful people in the process of understanding the role of a leader and the commitment required for success, is that some people decide it’s not a good fit. However, we don’t make it easy for them to reach this conclusion.
Flim-Flam Man, If You Were a Motorboat, and Other Moronic Interview Adventures
I manage to be a frequent recipient of horrific boss and interview stories from blog readers, twitter followers and colleagues around the globe. The level of what I describe as “moronocity” in the hiring community is off-the-charts, at a time when securing great talent has never been more important. Here are a few of the most recent examples:
Management Week in Review for March 4, 2011
Every week, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. Fair warning: I take a broad view of management, so my selections will range from leadership to innovation to finance and personal development and beyond. This week’s selections feature content on reinventing management, the strategic and practical implications of upgrade plans for consumer electronics products and some guidance on improving our decision-making by better utilizing outside advisors. Enjoy!
Introducing: The Millennial View
Today’s guest author, Eric Rodriguez, is a former student of mine and someone passionate about management, leadership and developing as a professional in his career. Eric recently approached me about writing some guest posts here at Management Excellence to build his on-line brand (a great idea on his part), and we sat down to discuss ideas. After talking over potential topics, we both zeroed in on a Millennials in the Workplace theme…but with a twist versus a lot of the other content found on this issue.
Our twist is to change the perspective, and instead of an endless stream of “experienced” authors writing about what it’s like to deal with the merging of the generations in the workforce, Eric will offer his perspective on navigating early career steps from the eyes of a twenty-something.
In the Battle for Change, Attacking the Culture Usually Proves Fatal
Jody Weis relinquished his role as “Top Cop” here in Chicago, after what was a tumultuous and a productive three-year run in this thankless job. Weis was a controversial appointment by Mayor Daley. He was an outsider…a product of the FBI, and someone who hadn’t earned any street cred with the powerful cultural force that is the rank and file of the Chicago Police Department. He drove change, improved key measures and alienated himself from the entire organization in the process. His situation offers a number of valuable lessons for all of us.