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™—Is There a Leadership Reset Button?
During a coaching call, a client recently commented, "I wish I could hit the reset button with my team." I've been thinking about it ever since. I know my younger self would have been quick to suggest that there were no do-overs in leadership. Perhaps I've mellowed a...
Leadership Caffeine™—Is There a Leadership Reset Button?
Are there leadership do-overs? The answer is a firm, “It depends.” In this article, I share the circumstances where it is appropriate to hit your Leadership Reset Button and I offer guidance for succeeding with this important work.
Your Recruiting Practices Might Just Be Killing Your Business
It’s long past overdue to change the way you recruit talent. The way you’ve been doing it is wrong, and it is hurting your business. This topic is particularly important, because there is a goldmine of talent on the street in this lousy economy. Your opportunity to strengthen your firm with hungry, motivated and powerful people will never be better IF you execute properly.
The Case of the Rapidly Shrinking Attention Span
Are we losing our ability to focus? Maybe. Maybe we never had it, and it is the exception instead of the rule, but it just seems so much harder in this environment to focus on an issue and work through it to creative, complete solutions. We’re too busy racing from one sound-bite opportunity to another, focusing our precious gray matter on topics for nanoseconds before the next interruption comes along.
Podcast: Ten Big Points on Leading and Leadership, part 1 of 2
Join Art for a little less than ten minutes of Management Excellence as he shares points 1 thru 5 of his 10 Big Points on Leading and Leadership. This podcast was based on a recent guest speaking opportunity for a class of college seniors and adapted to fit anyone who...
Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: 5 Quick Tips to Jolt You Into Action
Whether you are Chief Executive, a functional manager or someone who leads informally on project and product teams, start your week right and put these suggestions to work. Rinse and repeat in the future. You’ll be glad that you did.
Will this Business Revolutionize How Men Shop and Rescue Me from My 1970’s Fashion Training at the Same Time?
I plan on chronicling my experience in several posts over the next few weeks, with an exciting new men’s clothing/shopping service that I was introduced to called Trunk Club. I’m not sure if I’m more excited about the solution to my fashion challenges, or the fact that this is the best recent example that I’ve seen of a service that so perfectly solves a problem that it practically sells itself.
Quick Reads and Sound Bites on Success, Career Growth and Leading
Suggested links and resources on success, career growth as a product manager and leading. Check out the review of Gladwell’s Outliers at Three Star Leadership, Career Growth and the Product Manager by Art Petty and a podcast summary of Leading from the Edge by Dennis Perkins.
The Words of Leaders
We were discussing the failure of many organizations to stop old ways of doing things, even in the face of overwhelming proof that the old ways don’t work. My student mentioned that the appointment of a new CEO last year had at first been encouraging until it was clear that nothing would truly change. This unfortunate event is all too common.
Podcast: The Leader’s Guide to Managing Fear in the Workplace
This Management Excellence podcast episode tackles the challenging issue of managing morale and fighting fear in the face of economic and job uncertainty. Art Petty offers 13 suggestions for dealing with this insidious performance killer.
Monday-The Best Day of the Week, the Inauguration and Podcasting
Most people that I know just hate Mondays. You don’t even have to take a survey to confirm this point. Just watch people in their cars on the way to work or take a look around the faces buried in newspapers on the train. Here’s the short-list of why Mondays can be your best friend: