One of the most common tripping points of both early-career and experienced leaders is assuming that people are looking at issues and drawing similar conclusions. Your goal as a leader must be to help create a common picture and to facilitate the development of creative solutions. This starts with recognizing that differences in perspective are the building blocks for creative solutions.
Jocelyn R. Davis and Tom Atkinson offer some compelling thoughts on strategy in their article, "Need Speed? Slow Down," in the May, 2010 Harvard Business Review. They describe the concept of strategic speed as one of reducing the time it takes to create value. While “reducing time” might sound like speeding up, their research results suggest the opposite.
Fresh from a weekend of rediscovering the lawn and gardening muscles that clearly took the winter off, I found myself happy that I was able to quickly access freshly sharpened, well-oiled tools. As any good tradesman or craftsman (or weekend gardener) will tell you, there is no substitute for the right tool, properly maintained, when you need it. The same goes for leaders.
One of the best leadership public services you will find is Dan McCarthy's hard work to produce the monthly Leadership Development Carnivals. Dan scours the world far and wide for compelling content designed to inspire, energize and challenge you to step up your leadership game.
That moment in time when something has gone horribly wrong a customer is an ideal opportunity to not only repair but strengthen your relationship with your customer. The key however to winning a "moment of truth" is to ensure that your people recognize and immediately react. My recent experience at a local bicycle shop underscores how critical it is for your business to win those "moments of truth" every time.
Consider these common refrains from two different leaders:Leader 1: “That’s great! Congratulations! How do we do more of that?” Leader 2: “That’s broken and we need to fix it right away.” We have all met both of these characters. One sees opportunity and achievement and building blocks everywhere she looks and the other sees flaws and problems that need fixing. And while you are free to accuse me of making a hasty generalization here, my “blink” assessment of the two is that I want to hire or work for Leader #1
A few weeks ago, I published a post on “Jumpstart Your Marketing Reading to Restart Your Brain.” Here's my suggested summer reading list for managers looking to refresh and renew. Note...while my marketing list is relatively contemporary, the management list takes on a bit of a "classic" tone to it. That is by design.
Anyone involved in leadership and responsible for the development of leaders should read the recent BusinessWeek article, “Can GE Still Manage?” The article offers a fascinating look into GE’s traditional leadership and high-potential development practices, and raises an interesting question of whether these practices still hunt in a very different world than when they were conceived. While I'm not qualified to critique GE’s approach, the article certainly begs all of us to be thinking about or rethinking everything that we take for granted in how we find and cultivate talent and how we deploy our resources.
What do peers and managers perceive is unique about you in the workplace? What do you do so well, so uniquely that makes people stop and take notice? What’s your personal positioning strategy that meaningfully differentiates you from others in the minds of your customers, managers and stakeholders? You’re to be excused if you need to reach for another cup of coffee while you contemplate these “brand called me” questions that you likely only think about once every two years when you update your resume.
My long list of life-goals includes a few that are underlined and even circled to connote priority. Write one book per year is one of those that is double-underlined, circled and highlighted for emphasis. It’s high time that I quit thinking about this personal and professional Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and started executing. So, after too much thought and not enough work, I am excited to make public my next project: Leadership Caffeine-The Book. (Expect the title to evolve a bit.)
