The Leadership Caffeine Blog
When Your “Ask” Runs Into a Brick Wall— Find the Loose Brick
Shameless flattery: the brick wall/loose brick statement in the title is paraphrased from Keith Ferrazzi's foreword to Just Listen by Mark Goulston. -- Imagine you invested a great deal of time doing the background research, compiling the data, and building your...
When Your “Ask” Runs Into a Brick Wall— Find the Loose Brick
People resist anything that threatens their autonomy and safety. Quit leading with what you need and start focusing on what’s important to them, and you’ll watch resistance melt.
New Leader Tuesday-15 Ideas to Help You Tame the Meeting Beast
Meetings are interesting beasts to deal with as a new leader. Some (OK, very few) are incredibly productive and many (most) are gigantic and misdirected time sinks. Here are 15 ideas to help you develop some effective meeting habits:
Leadership Caffeine™-8 Lessons in Creative Talent Acquisition
Nothing is as important to your success as a leader as the talent you bring to bear in support of the work of your organization. Here are 8 ideas to stimulate your talent acquisition thinking and promote action:
Getting Ahead Part 2-Jump Start Your Strategic Curiosity with Key Questions
Senior leaders value employees who are proven operators AND who are capable of looking at the bigger picture and providing help in developing the way forward for the business. Your ability to cultivate both sets of skills will help you strengthen your professional value proposition and help differentiate you from your peers. This differentiation might just be the meaningful issue for that next promotion. Here are 6 Question Sets to jump-start your strategic curiosity:
New Leader Tuesday-The Power of Paying Attention
I once inherited a team previously managed by a person who reportedly filled her days with conference calls and meetings, but somehow never seemed to have time to meet with her team members to hear about their ideas and concerns or to discuss professional development opportunities. Paying attention was not a part of this manager’s style. The process of engaging with this new team taught me some important lessons about leading, including how critical it is for us to truly pay attention to our team members… .
Getting Ahead-Part 1: Taking Ownership of Your Professional Presence
Whether you are responsible for the work of others or your “team” stares back at you in the morning mirror, there are many key skills that you must cultivate to help differentiate you from your internal competitors and to successfully grow your career. Professional Presence, is one of those slightly squishy to define but critically important topics. Professional presence is that amalgam of qualities…confidence, authenticity, positive body language, proper vocal management, empathy etc. that others perceive in you and about you.
Here are 6 Key Questions and 5 ideas for assessing and deliberately strengthening your professional presence:
The Curious Habits of Big Idea Hunters in the Workplace
The most successful professionals I’ve worked with all share at least one common attribute…they are all innately curious and in search of ideas to solve problems and exploit perceived opportunities. These people are Big Idea Hunters, and they view problems, challenges and even the status quo as giant invitations to change, emblazoned in neon lights. Here are some of the curious habits of these creative individuals and how you might apply the lessons yourself or with your own team:
New Leader Tuesday-The Key to Motivating Your Team and 4 Ideas to Avoid
Motivation is one of those squishy topics that leaders at all levels deal with and often struggle with in their pursuit of high performance. Here are 4 ways practically guaranteed to do the opposite of “motivate.” And read on for the not so secret key(s) to motivating others.
Leadership Caffeine™: 5 Ways Leaders Can Promote an Outside-In View
Overcoming the gravitational pull of the office requires extraordinary effort. Succumb to this powerful tractor beam and your life is an endless stream of internal meetings and activities that lack any context for the realities of customers and the marketplace. Spend too much time inside your own walls, and you create your own alternate reality…one that lacks proper connectivity to the issues that should define your team’s priorities. Here are 5 ideas to help you and your team members change the view and cultivate critical marketplace context:
4 Reasons Why Questions are a Leader’s Best Friend
The best leaders I know wield questions like a surgeon wields a scalpel…carefully, precisely, respectfully and always with an objective in mind.
4 Reasons Why Questions are a Leader’s Best Friend: