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
Five BIG Strategy Process Misfires of Management Teams—How to Avoid Them
Few management team activities are more important than those focused on strategy. Few management team activities are more frustrating than those focused on strategy. Let’s explore the challenges most management teams encounter and share guidance on improving the...
Five BIG Strategy Process Misfires of Management Teams—How to Avoid Them
Few management team activities are more important than those focused on strategy. Few management team activities are more frustrating than those focused on strategy. Here are five big areas management teams struggle with strategy and ideas to help your team get them right.
Leadership Caffeine Podcast #27—John Baldoni
One of the secret joys of writing this blog over the past decade has been meeting so many remarkable and inspirational individuals in all sectors. In this episode of the Leadership Caffeine podcast, I have the privilege of connecting with one of those inspirational individuals, friend and leadership guru, author, and great guy, John Baldoni.
Why Drucker’s “Managing Oneself” is Incredibly Relevant to Managing Your Career
Every year I read Peter Drucker’s classic article, “Managing Oneself,” as part of my personal-professional career navigation process. His powerful questions and frank commentary on what we need to do in our careers helps me reorient and reset on my priorities and activities. I’ve added five questions of my own that are relevant in our emerging world.
Is a Career Makeover in Order? A Special Offer to Help Jumpstart Yours
Reinventing yourself in your career is hard work and best done with a guide. If you want to get started on your career makeover, here’s an exceptional limited time offer for a few individuals.
Be Careful with Multi-Person Feedback—It’s Easy to Get it Wrong
Multi-person feedback is a tricky issue. Don’t let it trip you up and then stress the people around you. Here are some tips for getting it right:
How to Respond When Someone Violates Your Trust
I’m an advocate of leaders practicing Swift Trust in the workplace. Given that time-to-trust is an essential driver of time-to-performance on teams, the approach makes sense, yet it is not risk-free—it will backfire from time-to-time. Here are some approaches to help you recover when someone makes you question your decision to trust them:
Thinking Differently—It’s Time to Fire Up Your Firm’s Imagination
There are more than a few reasons your firm or industry won’t make it through the next decade. While you won’t derail or defuse the power of the many disruptive market forces swirling in our world, it’s the lack of imagination for harnessing these forces that may ultimately relegate your firm to the business history books. Ironically, imagination may be the most controllable and most important of the tools you need to survive and even thrive in this world.
Leadership Caffeine Podcast #26—Dr. Nick Morgan
In this fast-moving, far-ranging conversation with communications expert, Dr. Nick Morgan, we uncover and share the verbal and non-verbal behaviors of great communicators.
Leadership Caffeine™—In Celebration of Those Who Think and Act Differently
It takes courage, self-confidence, and a high degree of risk tolerance to challenge conventional wisdom in environments fueled by the relentless pursuit of perfecting the status quo. Here are three behaviors of individuals who think and act differently and succeed:
A Checklist and Process to Create Daily Success at Work
Here’s a simple checklist process I use (and recommend to my clients) to help ensure they avoid the all activity/no vector trap.