Teaching others to employ effective decision-making processes is one of the most important and often ignored responsibilities of those in leadership roles. Unfortunately, training your team to look to you for the calls on how to fix problems and move forward is much easier than teaching your team members to stand on their own for most issues.
Much like the orange road construction signs springing up like dandelions on a Chicago lawn in April, you'll notice some construction challenges here at artpetty.com and the Management Excellence blog. We are in the process of updating the website and it is highly likely this will occasionally impede navigation temporarily. Blog posts will continue as usual.
It amazes and disappoints me all at the same time how many businesses have no clue what their customers really need from them. This problem is epidemic in the technology world (consumer electronics and business technology) in particular, where feature, function and price wars continue to dominate the landscape in spite of the reality that most of us buy for reasons other than feature, function or price.
Every high performance team I’ve experienced as a participant, a sponsor or an outside advisor, was governed by an overarching set of principles or values that formed and framed the culture. And while good words alone don’t create success, the combination of the leaders and participants living and acting according to those words everyday made things work.
Just say “No” to the post-work invite from the team for the beer. While you’ll feel torn because you enjoy social time as much as the next person, pay attention to that little voice in your mind trying to get your attention with, “You shouldn’t, you’re the boss.” No moralizing here. I’ve simply known too many who shut this voice out and paid with their credibility and on a few occasions, their jobs. Not convinced? Here are 6 reasons why I believe you should pass on the post-work happy hour invite:
After a brief hiatus, the Leadership Caffeine podcast is back! I'm excited to be on the air again and I'm excited about the great line-up of experts, authors and executives ready to share their big ideas! Speaking of big ideas, there's no one better to kick us off for this round of podcasts than G. Michael Maddock (Mike), the leader of the innovation agency Maddock-Douglas, author of multiple books, serial entrepreneur and someone who is a one-person idea generating machine. Mike is here with his latest literary effort: "Free the Idea Monkey...to focus on what matters most," a follow-on to his excellent book, Brand New: Solving the Innovation Paradox.
As a lifelong team participant and now devotee of leveraging the power of teams, I was fascinated and excited to see the article, “The New Science of Building Great Teams,” in the April, 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review. I suspect we are all for adding some science to the stick, squishy and often problematic issue of how to get people to not only play nice together in the sandbox, but how to do so at a sustained high-level of performance. Here are a few thoughts and "blink reactions" to this interesting article and study:
A few years ago, I wrote a post entitled, “At Least 20 Things to Stop Doing as a Leader” Reader comments quickly quadrupled that number. It seems there's no shortage of Bad Boss habits. Here’s a few more "fresh" suggestions provided by clients for publication purposes since I wrote the original post. (Note to readers, this and the predecessor post with comments are ideal for printing and quietly leaving behind on the boss’s chair.)
Few events do more to suck the life and energy out of a team than the boss’s weekly status meeting. If you are the boss, it's time to exorcise these from your operating routine.
It’s easy for those of us who count our career in decades to discount how well attuned our youngest workers are to what defines good leadership and good business practices. To do so, is a mistake. Here are 7 reasons why you should work harder to leverage the potential of your youngest workers:
