The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Insights from the Latest Career Reinvent Boot Camp
A Lot Can Happen in Eight Short Weeks We wrapped up the latest Career Reinvent Boot Camp with last night’s group session, and as always, for this program, it’s part celebration of incredible progress and new friendships made, and a short, slightly sad goodbye. (The...
Insights from the Latest Career Reinvent Boot Camp
We wrapped up the latest Career Reinvent Boot Camp with last night’s group session, and as always, for this program, it’s part celebration of incredible progress and new friendships made, and a short, slightly sad goodbye. Here are some of the key insights gained via this fabulous cohort group:
Tuning In to Leadership (and much more) With A Great New Book
Tuned In presents a six-step process for creating a resonator: “a product or service that so perfectly solves problems for buyers that it sells itself.” The examples, approaches and ideas for realizing resonators and for supporting the creation of an organizational culture that institutionalizes the requisite thinking and processes are the heart of the work. The steps: find unresolved problems, understand buyer personas, quantify the impact, create breakthrough experiences, articulate powerful ideas and establish authentic connections offer powerful and practical guidance for marketers and executives everywhere.
Preventing Product Launch Failure: Watch Out for the Pitfalls!
G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Viton writing in the Innovation Engine column at BusinessWeek online, offer a sobering look at the Ten Reasons Your Next Launch Will Fail. From the propensity of companies to create solutions for unknown problems (Science Run Amok) to the recurring theme of teams convincing themselves that they can’t miss (Death by Consensus), this insightful and witty column offers some priceless guidance for marketers, product and project managers and executives everywhere.
Sirius and XM: Does Satellite Radio Resonate?
If I’m XM/Sirius, I would be losing more sleep over why people aren’t knocking down the proverbial doors to take advantage of their quality offerings. I hope they make it, but if my class is representative of a large part of the potential subscriber base, satellite radio either doesn’t resonate, or the companies have failed to communicate the value in a way that resonates. I hope that the management teams are Tuning In.
Don’t Misread the Millennials…Or A Coping Strategy for Managers
The impact of this upbringing is now manifesting itself in the workplace, as more buttoned down Generation Xers or younger Boomers are dealing with a wave of people that seemingly don’t have the work ethic and willingness to pay dues that allegedly we all must bring to our professional lives. Looked at through the eyes of those that are not so far away in age, but miles away in work philosophy, it’s easy to start applying labels like lazy and spoiled. However, before we indict this group of leaders that the demographic numbers indicate that we surely will hand over the reins of power to, it’s important to try and understand what makes them tick.
A Blogging Milestone and What I Learned by Writing 100 Blog Posts
It was a tough week for blogging. A perfect storm of business and personal schedule challenges conspired to keep me from spending quality time on the blog. OK, and the fact that I have been holding steady at 99 posts for a few days, and somehow it seemed like I needed to create something truly remarkable for the milestone, 100th post. I’m over the “need for remarkable” part, but thought I would take a few minutes this Saturday morning to reflect back on what I’ve learned in this half year of blogging about all things management, leadership, strategy and project and product management.
Seven Suggestions to Consider When Creating A New Market
If you’ve ever worked in an organization or on a team that got caught up in the quest to create a new market you know that the experience is all consuming and exhilarating. I offer a number of leadership and management suggestions that might prove helpful on your own journey of market creation.
Bad Bosses, A Walk with Dante and Your Leadership Legacy
Ask a room full of mid-level managers to talk about great leaders that have supported them and you get a few nice stories. Ask them for examples of bad leaders and bad leadership practices and you may have to run for high-ground as the trickle of mildly repressed memories turns into a torrent of frightening anecdotes described by individuals with a far-away look in their eyes and a tone tinged with revenge in their voices.
In Search of the High Performance Project Team
If the informal survey results above are even remotely close to reality, many/most people have not had the experience to participate on a high performance project team. While successfully managing projects is a tough task, I do not believe that we are dealing with a degree of impossibility. If project success is critical to your organization’s advancement, everyone from the CEO on down has a vested interest in ensuring that greater than 10% of the project teams take on the characteristics of a high-performance environment.
How Healthy is Your Leadership Culture? Rate It Yourself and See or, “Rate it and Weep”
Chances are if you are like most of the business professionals that take the 10 question Leadership Culture Index below, your organization can use some improvement. A lot of improvement.