Art Petty, Author at Management Excellence by Art Petty

Dumb Luck and Employee Happiness-One Works and the Other Doesn’t?

Every once in awhile, my second favorite publication, Harvard Business Review, serves up some fascinating content that leaves me scratching my head and wondering. In addition to some excellent content, the April, 2009 issue summarizes a couple of potentially pointless studies in the Forethought section. One asks: “Are Great Companies Just Lucky?” and the other serves up, “Employee Happiness Isn’t Enough to Satisfy Customers.” Both articles offer up some interesting premises and are backed by well-pedigreed professionals that seem to have conducted a fair amount of research to conclude that luck is important and employee happiness is not the silver bullet of customer satisfaction. My reactions range from, “OK, and the point is…?” to “Huh?”

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:04-05:00April 14th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Creating Time to Get Stuff Done

A number of my last few posts have focused on thinking big, and a wise reader pointed out that with all of the dreaming and visioning he has been doing at my bequest, he’s falling hopelessly behind in his work. Fair point, so grab a cup of something hot, along with a pen and paper, and don’t get too comfortable. After all, who has time to read blog posts all day, when there’s work to be done! This one’s short and sweet! In my opinion, there’s still no substitute for the A, B, C list. It doesn’t matter if you create it on your p.c., on a notepad or on your iphone, just create one and use it to guide where you focus your time. The key is in establishing the proper criteria for prioritizing your tasks.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:05-05:00April 13th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|3 Comments

Help Wanted: Visionaries and Dreamers-Safe Return Doubtful

While it has never been substantiated that the explorer and leader Ernest Shackleton actually placed this ad, these few short sentences have taken on a life of their own. They read: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” There are those in this world that run towards these types of opportunities and others that run away as fast as they can. I’ve always been inspired by individuals that look beyond the here and now and issues of the moment to see and seize the opportunity to do something great.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:07-05:00April 8th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|3 Comments

Detoxing Your Team

Most of us can recall working with someone that had such a strong, negative impact on the work environment that you could literally feel the emotional mood swing when this person walked into a meeting. For some unknown reason, perhaps a karmic-imbalance in the universe, these toxic characters have the unnerving and disconcerting tendency to be great survivors. While it is easy to intuit that toxic employees are value destroyers, we’ve been short on hard data about the true impact that these individuals have on the work environment. Until now.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:08-05:00April 7th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|10 Comments

Dream and Act Big: Leadership Caffeine™ for the Week of April 5, 2009

This week’s jolt of energy is taken from a great interview with Jim Collins in the April, 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine. Collins connected with Inc. editor, Bo Burlingham to share views on the state of our world, building great businesses and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial focus is relevant for many that have either been pushed into this world through downsizing or are considering it as they grow weary of the uncertainties of corporate life. And whether you are a budding entrepreneur or not, the insights, guidance and reminder to dream and act big are appropriate and inspirational.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:09-05:00April 5th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|1 Comment

Develop Culture Sensing Skills and Take the Blinders Off Of Your Career

One of my greatest career misfires was accepting a role in a firm where I had failed to properly assess the culture. I was blinded by the allure of this successful and global firm and by the sharp people that I met during the interview process. I can think of few skills more important for professionals, product and project managers and other lateral leaders to develop than culture sensing. All of the functional or vocational expertise in the world is for naught if the individual fails to take into account and leverage cultural idiosyncrasies to achieve results and drive performance improvements.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:11-05:00April 3rd, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|4 Comments

New Leaders, Twitter and the Volunteer Management Conundrum

The Top Ten Challenges of the New Leader, an update on my experience with Twitter (and why all marketers should join), and the Volunteer Management conundrum in our communities that we are capable of solving. Oh, and three developmental suggestions for your professional "To Do" list.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:12-05:00April 2nd, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Hey Tech Marketers, How About Helping Your Customers Solve Problems

"Nobody Cares About Your Products (Except You)," is one of the core rules that author and marketing thought-leader David Meerman Scott espouses in his latest book, World Wide Rave, and throughout his other works and blogs. The most zealous anti-smokers that I know are former smokers. The fact that in hindsight, I can see that I was guilty of being a bit too proud of the features and functions of my own products as a technology marketer makes me just a bit maniacal about David's product rule as a user and consumer of tech products today. Unfortunately, it seems like there are still quite a few technology marketers out there that did not get the memo. What I thought would be a simple search for a solution to a straight-forward business issue has turned into a quest worthy of Homer.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:14-05:00March 31st, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|1 Comment

Leadership Caffeine™ for the Week of March 30, 2009

I’m striking a blow this week against Boss-Blame…that world class sport that so many engage in as part of rationalizing why their own results might just be falling short of something resembling excellence. It's time to engender a new sense of personal and professional accountability in the workplace.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:15-05:00March 29th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|3 Comments

Values in Action-Helping Your Son or Daughter Choose a College

For anyone who has lived through the process of supporting their son or daughter in the search for a college, it is a truly exciting, perplexing and tiring endeavor. It’s also an opportunity to watch values in action at the various institutions as well as with your own child as they wrestle with what is to them a monumental choice.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:18-05:00March 24th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

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