The Leadership Caffeine Blog
How Effective Leaders Help Their Teams Turn Ideas Into Actions
Think about it: "Ideas are easy; doing stuff is hard." –Seth Godin In my article How leaders can teach their teams to become more creative, I proposed a tune-up of the approaches used in many workplaces to generate ideas. After all, ideas are oxygen for...
How Effective Leaders Help Their Teams Turn Ideas Into Actions
Ideas are oxygen for problem-solving. Yet, all the ideas in the world won’t help you solve the challenges in front of you if you don’t have solid ideas-to-actions flow. As leaders, we need to complete the process and make sure there’s a robust Ideas-to-Actions machine operating on our teams and in our organizations. Here are approaches to help strengthen the flow of ideas into actions in your workplace:
It’s Your Career—Show Your Boss You Want to Learn and Grow
An employee interested in developing is like catnip for a conscientious boss. We’ll put in extra effort to support your development; find ways to relax our training budgets to push you along, and frankly, if you are genuinely, authentically pushing the envelope on your own development, you will gain access to the challenging assignments that set people up for advancement. Here are 5 ideas to make sure the boss knows you are interested in learning and growing:
Sears CEO: “We have a profit problem.” Really?
In an article in the Sunday Chicago Tribune, Edward Lampert, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sears Holding Corp offers, “We don’t have a sales problem. What we have is a profit problem, and that’s what we’re intending to address.” Mr. Lampert, I respectfully suggest that you have a lot of problems in your shrinking, unidentifiable former retail empire. However, characterizing the situation as a profit problem is off the mark.
Just One Thing—There’s No Such Thing as a Partially Toxic Employee
As managers, we tend to tolerate certain employees who straddle that toxic boundary, in large part, because we can rationalize their aberrant behaviors in the context of what they do well. This is a mistake with tremendous costs to the organization, team and to your own credibility as a leader.
New Leader Tuesday—The Power of Deliberate Listening
Listening is in short supply in this noisy, interruption driven world, yet it’s critical for leadership success at every level. Here are 6 ideas to help strengthen your effectiveness as a listener starting today:
Leadership Caffeine™—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:
The Feedback Series—Part 6: Wrap up and Some Do’s and Don’ts
In our final post in this series, here are some important Do’s and Don’ts that I’ve learned through experience (often the hard way), or, gained through the insights of clients and program participants. Use these in good health and great feedback!
Leadership Caffeine™—Too Much Time with the Wrong People
If I could have all of the time back working with poor performers, people in dire need of an attitude adjustment or, people who momentarily fooled naive, noble me into believing they wanted to change their ways, I would gladly reinvest it with those seeking to grow and strengthen as professionals. Early in my career, I believed that I could by sheer force of will turn poor performers into stars and help those with poor attitudes emerge as model citizens. I believed I possessed the leader’s equivalent of the Philosopher’s Stone and could turn lead into gold.
The Feedback Series—Part 5: Managing the Discussion
Your planning work based on the guidance in the first four posts in this series is intended to set the stage for an effective, constructive discussion. In part five, we turn our attention to managing the discussion. Here are six key issues you must take into account in every feedback discussion and ideas for helping you navigate three common, challenging feedback situations:
It’s Your Career—Seriously, Why Should Your Boss Invest in You?
Certainly, no self-respecting, capable manager ignores the professional development components of her role. However, I can tell you with near certainty, that your manager is much more interested in investing in you if she sees you investing in yourself. Why not give her some reasons to help you stay ahead of the game. Here are six ideas that just might convince the boss to invest more in you: