The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™— Success Demands Unity of Purpose
In too many of our organizations and on our teams, people are engaged at the transaction level. They work, meet, and deliver because it’s expected. They stop short of committing because something is missing from the environment. There’s a lack of unity of purpose. In...
Leadership Caffeine™— Success Demands Unity of Purpose
What we want as leaders is deep immersion from our team members. Yet, our systems, numbers, and approaches mainly generate transactional involvement. They lack unity of purpose.
Management Week In Review-January 14, 2011
Every Friday, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. This week, I’m including content on assessing your status and progress as a boss, simplifying complex problems to spur innovation and gain feedback, and overcoming that ever-present “resistance” as we pursue personal and professional development. Enjoy!
Want to Change the World? Don’t Forget to Build Your Business Model
Over the past few weeks, I’ve connected with some brilliant individuals in multiple entrepreneurial organizations. In every instance, I heard some form of “We want to change the world” as these high-energy individuals described their ideas and their motivation. I love “change the world ideas” put forth by people passionate about doing something new, doing something better and helping others along the way. There’s no way I can avoid cheering for these teams. However, I can worry for them. Here’s why…
Important Reads: Almost Isn’t Good Enough, Wayne Elsey of Soles4Souls
The latest Management Excellence Book Review: This is not so much a book review as it is my reaction to a powerful work from a man doing remarkable things to change the world. “Almost Isn’t Good Enough,” by Soles4Souls founder, Wayne Elsey is also a book about shoes. And about a man. And about the human condition. And about management and leadership. And about revolutionizing the management and fund-raising practices in the world of not-for-profit organizations.
Leadership Caffeine™: Prepare Your Attitude Daily to Lead Effectively
If as Woody Allen indicated, “80-percent of success is just showing up,” the gross majority of the rest of success must be attributable to adopting the right attitude. I’ll leave a little wiggle room in there for the propensity to act and our good friend, luck. Here are six ideas to help you prepare your positive attitude daily.
Management Week in Review-January 7, 2011
One of my professional goals this year is to do a better job sharing insights and perspectives from a broad range of great leadership and management writers and thinkers. Every Friday, I will share my three favorites for the week. This week, I’m including content on transforming yourself, testing your strategy and turning some of the disasters of 2010 into great lessons for 2011. Enjoy!
Rethinking Idea Generation
Idea generation is core to everything we do in our organizations. It’s too bad that we’ve been going about it all wrong!
Updates: The Latest e-Newsletter & My Bookstore
Management Excellence Updates for January 5, 2011:My latest e-Newsletter with subscriber-only content is out, and I’ve constructed a new bookstore (without harming any bricks or mortar), featuring my recommendations in leadership & management, strategy, innovation, marketing, history and biography. Back Thursday with my regularly scheduled blog content!
Leadership Caffeine™: How to Cope With Organizational Alchemists
The modern-day practice of alchemy is only metaphorically about the search for a method to turn lead into gold. Instead of the medieval pursuit by alchemists of a magical chemical conversion process to change one element into another, modern practitioners are focused on the magical and easy transformation of people and organizations from one level of performance to another. Here are 12 questions to help you keep the alchemists in check.
January Leadership Development Carnival!
One of my favorite moments every month is strolling through the latest Leadership Development Carnival, hosted by the generous, popular and might I add, remarkably intelligent , Dan McCarthy, proprietor of the aptly named, Great Leadership blog. Dan was kind enough to include my post on, “How to Appropriately Respond to Positive Praise,” and we’ll see how he handles my flowery (but heartfelt) words above! Take a stroll, see how Dan handles the praise, and marvel at the collection of new and classic bloggers contributing their best to help spread excitement and warmth to kick off the new year!