The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—The Five Building Blocks of the Healthy Working Environment
It's always bothered me that building a healthy working environment isn't described in most managerial job descriptions. This is the most important work a manager can perform to strengthen engagement and performance, yet working on the working environment is mostly...
Leadership Caffeine™—The Five Building Blocks of the Healthy Working Environment
It’s always bothered me that building a healthy working environment isn’t described in most managerial job descriptions. This is the most important work a manager can engage in to strengthen engagement and performance, yet working on the working environment is ignored in the daily rush for results. In this article, I offer ideas and approaches to help managers jump-start this critical work.
Management Excellence Audio Interview: The CEO Perspective on Product Management
Notes from Art: I recently mentioned that I would be kicking off the Management Excellence Audio Interview Series, and I’m thrilled to be doing it today with Mike Mulcahy, a technology industry executive that has served as a CEO, a Founder of his own start-up and a...
Looking for A Framework to Rebuild Your Business? Think Baldrige
My own personal observation is that the Baldrige National Quality Program is one of the most misunderstood, unknown and poorly marketed great programs for organizations seeking a framework for business performance improvement. You owe it to yourself and your organization to become familiar with the program and the many great low and no-cost tools available to help you improve your business.
Leadership Caffeine™: Take Your Best Practices Viral with Leadership Development Blocking and Tackling
When it comes to leadership development, sweeping corporate mandates and expensive training initiatives are rarely as effective as consistent blocking and tackling. Here are some action-focused ideas to help catalyze a leadership development revolution in your firm.
Management Excellence News, Updates & Coming Attractions
Note from Art: While I’m remarkably sensitive to not creating an infomercial out of my blog, I am involved in a number of exciting activities that I’ve shared with some of you personally. Here’s a bit broader update and a call for speakers and interview subjects.
Back to School: Teachers are Our Early Leaders-Have You Thanked The Ones that Made a Difference?
With school starting back up in most parts of the country during the next few weeks, now would be a good time to reach out to that teacher from 20 or 30 years ago and let them know that they made a difference. Catch them before they move off into retirement. I believe my former favorite teach just recently retired, and now I’m stuck trying to look him up, when I had almost 30 years to drop him a note at school. Talk about procrastination!
Want a Great Primer in Leadership? Work for a Bastard and Take Notes
While I wouldn’t counsel you to seek out and work for a b@st@rd as part of your formal mentoring experience, given the ratio of these characters to good leaders in the workplace, chances are you’ll trip across one or more in your career. When you do, take in the experience as a powerful education in how not to lead.
Leadership Caffeine™: Respect and the Leader-Would Your Team Save Your Leadership Hide?
Imagine a corporate world where those being led had a strong vote on whether their leaders lived to lead or were shown the door. This happened recently at the newly combined Fiat-Chrysler, and the question that was asked of low and mid level staffers was:
“What do you think of your boss?”
Friday Leadership Shorts
Note from Art: It’s Friday again, and the weather looks great here in Chicago…high 80’s and blue skies. I’m breaking out the Friday Leadership Shorts to share some quick thoughts on the power of words, the political leader and leading under adversity. And then I’ll let you get on with your day and weekend. I’ve got another son to help pack for college, and maybe, just maybe he’ll play me in tennis one last time this season and not run me around too much.
Twitter and Social Networking: Job Search Power Tools or Time Killers?
One of the best lessons that I’ve learned from working on about two million fix-it and improvement projects with my Dad is to match the right tool to the job at hand. This is particularly true in searching for a job, which can be one of the more vexing projects for many people.
Fortunately, there are a number of interesting new power tools available in the form of social networking platforms, to help today’s job seeker. However, unlike the tools in the picture, there are few guidelines on how and where to to use these tools to good effect.