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
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.
Art of Managing—Avoid Strategy Malpractice with a Proper Diagnosis
If you’ve ever dealt with a complex medical issue, you understand how difficult it sometimes is to identify the real problem. Yet, pinpointing this problem is essential to developing the best possible treatment regimen. It can be a matter of life or death. The same holds true in business, where it’s essential to put time and efforts into developing an effective diagnosis of your firm’s situation:
Leadership Caffeine™—It’s Time to Become Better Informed Leadership Consumers
There’s a lot of happy talk in books, on blogs and in articles about leaders and leading. Much of the writing and commentary on leadership and leading reads like a Made-for-TV script with much of the gory and dirty content left out and the outcome predictable—the good guys always win. It’s disconnected from reality. What’s needed is a revolution in how we as consumers of leadership evaluate and select our leaders.
Just One Thing—Dream Big and Then Fight Like Heck
Our goals and big dreams often are rudely shoved out of the way in favor of the urgent issues of life as well as those activities we deem more easily achievable. Some are abandoned due to the mirage of size and complexity. “It’s too big for me to accomplish.” Or, “I’m not sure how I would even get started.” We make excuses for ourselves, mostly, because we don’t know how to fight what author Steven Pressfield calls resistance.
The Next Act—Saying “Goodbye” to Corporate Life
If you’ve decided it’s time for something new in your professional life, and if that something new goes beyond a simple job change to a vocation change, it pays to be prepared. You’ll be balancing simultaneous equations that include: reinventing yourself and your skills; starting up and building a client base or book of business, and navigating an emotional roller coaster with some high-highs, step drops and the occasional corkscrew that will find you momentarily upside down and disoriented.
Interview with Laura Macleod of From the Inside Out Project
Welcome back to the Leadership Caffeine Podcast series! While the series took a hiatus for an extended period during my last venture, the idea of bringing fresh voices to the important topics of management and leadership is an unyielding objective of mine here at the Management Excellence blog. I’m excited to return to the series and kick-off with Laura MacLeod, founder and proprietor of From the Inside Out Project, a firm dedicated to smoothing communications and relations between hourly employees and management.
Coming Attractions at the Management Excellence Blog
There’s a lot of new and a fair amount of new and improved coming soon at the Management Excellence blog. From the return of the Leadership Caffeine podcast to the new and improved Leadership Caffeine e-News, the Holiday Book List and the 2016 Coaching Calls Series, I’m excited to support your professional development efforts with all of these vehicles!
Leadership Caffeine™—Are You Driving Your Team Bananas?
What I really wanted to call this post was, “Quit Acting Like a Hyper-Rooster.” It’s much more visual, and after all, does anyone really want to look or act like a hyper-rooster? Yet, that’s exactly what too many managers act and look like, as they simultaneously strut and flit around the office or plant, moving from activity to activity, focusing on everything and nothing and making their colleagues dizzy and disoriented in the process.
Leadership Caffeine™—Giving Thanks for Those Who Taught Us Grit
Grit is a good word. It’s an even better trait. You know what grit is when you see it. It’s that grind-it-out sticktoitiveness in the face of adversity displayed by individuals long on character and short on “I can’t.” Here are some of my most inspiring examples of grit:
Just One Thing—The Hard Work of Pivoting To Purpose
Whether it’s a life-stage issue or a sign of the times, I seem to regularly run into individuals who are active in pursuit of vocations that focus on helping others. They are pivoting to purpose.