About Art Petty

Art Petty is a coach, speaker and workshop presenter focusing on helping professionals and organizations learn to survive and thrive in an era of change. When he is not speaking, Art serves senior executives, business owners and high potential professionals as a coach and strategy advisor. Additionally, Art’s books are widely used in leadership development programs. To learn more or discuss a challenge, contact Art.

Preventing Product Launch Failure: Watch Out for the Pitfalls!

G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Viton writing in the Innovation Engine column at BusinessWeek online, offer a sobering look at the Ten Reasons Your Next Launch Will Fail. From the propensity of companies to create solutions for unknown problems (Science Run Amok) to the recurring theme of teams convincing themselves that they can't miss (Death by Consensus), this insightful and witty column offers some priceless guidance for marketers, product and project managers and executives everywhere.

Sirius and XM: Does Satellite Radio Resonate?

If I'm XM/Sirius, I would be losing more sleep over why people aren't knocking down the proverbial doors to take advantage of their quality offerings. I hope they make it, but if my class is representative of a large part of the potential subscriber base, satellite radio either doesn't resonate, or the companies have failed to communicate the value in a way that resonates. I hope that the management teams are Tuning In.

Don’t Misread the Millennials…Or A Coping Strategy for Managers

The impact of this upbringing is now manifesting itself in the workplace, as more buttoned down Generation Xers or younger Boomers are dealing with a wave of people that seemingly don't have the work ethic and willingness to pay dues that allegedly we all must bring to our professional lives. Looked at through the eyes of those that are not so far away in age, but miles away in work philosophy, it's easy to start applying labels like lazy and spoiled. However, before we indict this group of leaders that the demographic numbers indicate that we surely will hand over the reins of power to, it's important to try and understand what makes them tick.

A Blogging Milestone and What I Learned by Writing 100 Blog Posts

It was a tough week for blogging. A perfect storm of business and personal schedule challenges conspired to keep me from spending quality time on the blog. OK, and the fact that I have been holding steady at 99 posts for a few days, and somehow it seemed like I needed to create something truly remarkable for the milestone, 100th post. I'm over the "need for remarkable" part, but thought I would take a few minutes this Saturday morning to reflect back on what I've learned in this half year of blogging about all things management, leadership, strategy and project and product management.

Bad Bosses, A Walk with Dante and Your Leadership Legacy

Ask a room full of mid-level managers to talk about great leaders that have supported them and you get a few nice stories. Ask them for examples of bad leaders and bad leadership practices and you may have to run for high-ground as the trickle of mildly repressed memories turns into a torrent of frightening anecdotes described by individuals with a far-away look in their eyes and a tone tinged with revenge in their voices.

In Search of the High Performance Project Team

If the informal survey results above are even remotely close to reality, many/most people have not had the experience to participate on a high performance project team. While successfully managing projects is a tough task, I do not believe that we are dealing with a degree of impossibility. If project success is critical to your organization's advancement, everyone from the CEO on down has a vested interest in ensuring that greater than 10% of the project teams take on the characteristics of a high-performance environment.

Leadership and the Winning Environment

From selecting and supporting the right people to caring enough to provide the tools, mentoring and constructive feedback, this leader, whether CEO, Shift Supervisor or High School Tennis Coach, is truly responsible for creating an environment that breeds success. Success as we know, tends to breed more success. It's a wonderful, vicious cycle.

Your Next Boss Might Just Be a 20-something Level 5 Guild Leader

While to most it might seem implausible or even laughable that the leaders of tomorrow are applying skills developed from years of what we viewed as "wasting time" by playing on-line games, it merits some consideration. Certainly most organizations completely drop the ball on effectively identifying and developing leadership talent, and my own experience and research indicates that where most (new) leaders struggle is in the area of soft skills and feedback. You don't learn how to lead from a book or sitting in a classroom at graduate school, so who's to say that the on-line gaming environment is not an outstanding and risk-free way to develop leadership acumen.

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