The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Seven Things Management Teams (Repeatedly) Get Wrong with Strategy Work
Strategy Process Dysfunction and Malfunction—Take Heed I’ve been exposed to strategy from my first days in product management to my work as a senior executive and now as a strategy advisor/facilitator. I’ve worked with every framework, most major (and quite a few...
Seven Things Management Teams (Repeatedly) Get Wrong with Strategy Work
I’ve observed just about every type of dysfunction or malfunction possible with strategy work. Here are the misfires I see most often. Take heed, get the right help, and do everything possible to avoid these tripping points. Your firm’s future and probably your job depends on it.
Say “No” to Indecent Leadership
We’ve tolerated mediocre to miserable leadership in too many areas of our society and lives for too long. It’s a good time to rethink leadership and demand accountability for results.
Smile is Mandatory—Customer Service Pitfalls: Guest Post by Laura MacLeod
Laura MacLeod returns to the blog to share her insights on customer service. In this post, she suggests that some of our traditional customer service training might just miss the mark. She offers some alternative approaches to consider.
The Best Of: Jump-start Your Team’s “Ideas to Actions” Machine
Ideas in the workplace that are voiced but never vetted or pursued are the corporate equivalent of those brilliant insights we have in the middle of the night that we don’t bother to write down. “I’ll remember it in the morning,” we think at the time. We rarely do. Here are 7 ideas to help you jumpstart your firm’s “ideas to Actions” machine:
The Best Of: The Trust Building Power of Second Chances
If humans are in the picture, mistakes will occur. Whether the mistake is an error in judgment, a result of incomplete planning or, due to inexperience with the task at hand, your team members will make mistakes. Your response to a mistake sets the tone for the next stage of your relationship. Here are 5 ideas to help you move in the right direction in these emotionally charged situations:
Expertise and the Purple Squirrel—Guest Post by Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson of Under10 Consulting, shares his thoughts on the mythical “Purple Squirrel” of job recruiting fame. Steve offers some valuable thoughts for all of us on “keeping it real” when specifying candidate requirements. Enjoy!
Management and Quality Lessons in the Airbag Recall
With clear acknowledgement that I am just one of millions of consumers impacted by the Takata Airbag disaster (recall), I feel compelled to vent. I of course vent not by screaming, but by looking for the management lessons in the mess. There are more than a few marketing and management lessons embedded in the industry’s handling of this potentially life-threatening problem.
Leadership Caffeine™—The Hard Work of Leading Is All In Your Mind
The hardest work of leading you’ll ever do is not the coaching, problem-solving, communicating and other externally focused activities that occupy your days. Rather, the heavy lifting of creating success as a leader goes on in the space between your ears. Here are 5 key internal issues every leader must regularly renew:
Art’s Writing and Week in Review for March 12, 2016
It was an interesting week in the news and an interesting week to explore a variety of topics in management and leadership. Here are four for your consideration and some thoughts on the week in the rearview mirror:
Good Managers Watch the Actors, Not Just the Action
In my experience, the best managers are devoted students of the art of character study—not out of some desire to play armchair psychologist, but rather out of the desire to help. Here’s why…