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 Ideas to Help Get New Manager Development Right
I'm opinionated on the challenges (and solutions) for new manager development. Here's why: Why I Care About New Manager Development so Passionately I know the potential of these individuals. As a corporate manager and then executive, I dedicated time and energy to...
FIve Big Ideas to Help Get New Manager Development Right
Managers are the individuals we need to create engagement, deliver quality results, and serve as critical enablers of change and adaptation in our world. And if Gallup. is even half right with their measures of disengagement and their pointing to managers as the cause, we’re failing at manager development. Here are five big ideas to help.
What Story are You Telling About Your Value?
Success is much easier to attain when we tune in to our true purpose and the real impact we have on others. Once we discover that purpose and impact, we must articulate it through our personal narrative. Most of us are telling the wrong story.
Give Yourself Permission
Too often, we hesitate to make a decision or take action because we are insecure and uncomfortable over the possibility that we might be wrong. Instead of waiting indefinitely for a perfect certainty that will never arrive, give yourself permission to take action. Life is lived one moment and one action at a time.
When it Pays to Invest in Yourself
Working professionals who choose to not invest in their own skills development and knowledge expansion are effectively saying, “I know enough.” They are defaulting on their futures.”
Why Unilever Buying Dollar Shave Club is Relevant for Your Firm
The acquisition of Dollar Shave Club by Unilever highlights the need for all of us in our businesses to look beyond our traditional approaches. We focus intensely on what we do and how we do it and we fail to see simple alternatives that upstarts can easily exploit at our expense.
Leadership Caffeine™—Can One Person (You) Make a Difference?
I hear the same doubt expressed over and over again by good people upset over conditions in their workplace. It sounds something like: “Can I really make a difference? I’m just one person.” The often unspoken trailer is: “…and I am not the CEO or a senior executive,...
The Top 10 Outcomes from an Art Petty Live Event
One of the happy outcomes of my leadership and management writing is the opportunity to speak and work with great groups of professionals in live settings. This post outlines the Top 10 Outcomes of one of my live events. I would love to work with you and your team!
Great Leadership Remains in the Moment
Too many professionals I encounter add stress to their lives and reduce their effectiveness by forgetting to be in the moment. You cannot change the past but you can control what the future looks like by being present in the here and now.
In Search of Good Operators in Business
We tend to elevate the visionaries in our world to mythological status, when in reality, a good operator is what is needed to save and transform your business. Here’s a reminder on the behaviors of good operators:
Dangerous Words in Business and Six Year-Old Refrigerators
We are often our own worst enemies, especially when it comes to making decisions around failed initiatives (or failing refrigerators). When you hear the words, “with a bit more time and money,” you should run the other way and don’t forget to grab your checkbook.