The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—How Managers Can Turbocharge One-on-Ones to Promote Growth
One-on-Ones are the Most Valuable Real Estate on Your Calendar I'm consistently surprised by how few managers and executives have a game plan for their one-on-one sessions with team members. Just ask those team members, as too many describe these sessions with the...
Leadership Caffeine™—How Managers Can Turbocharge One-on-Ones to Promote Growth
I’m consistently surprised by how few managers and executives have a game plan for their one-on-one sessions with team members. Just ask those team members, as too many describe these sessions with the boss as infrequent or inconsistent, ineffective, and in some cases, intolerable. Here are 7 ideas to help you increase the effectiveness of your one-on-one sessions for all parties:
July Issue of the Management Excellence e-Newsletter: Subscriber Only Content
he July issue of The Management Excellence e-Newsletter is out, with subscriber-only content. The current issue includes content on: Improving Ideation & Creativity with Your Team, Surviving and Thriving at the Dreaded Annual Strategy Off-Site, Ideas for Jump-Starting Your Personal/Professional Development Program, New Suggestions for the Management Excellence Reading List and
a tasteful promotion at the bottom of the newsletter outlining new beta test opportunities for upcoming Building Better Leaders programs and other services. (Hey, I am in business here!)
If you’re not a subscriber, please consider signing on and gaining access to content and opportunities not covered on my blogs. As always, I will guard your e-mail information with amazing ferocity!
The July Management Excellence Newsletter & Free Books
The July issue of The Management Excellence e-Newsletter is out, with subscriber-only content. The current issue includes content on: Improving Ideation & Creativity with Your Team, Surviving and Thriving at the Dreaded Annual Strategy Off-Site, Ideas for Jump-Starting Your Personal/Professional Development Program, New Suggestions for the Management Excellence Reading List and
a tasteful promotion at the bottom of the newsletter outlining new beta test opportunities for upcoming Building Better Leaders programs and other services. (Hey, I am in business here!)
If you’re not a subscriber, please consider signing on and gaining access to content and opportunities not covered on my blogs. As always, I will guard your e-mail information with amazing ferocity!
Leadership Caffeine™: 6 Ideas to Improve Team Performance Today
If your organization is like most, you’re leaving money on the table in terms of team productivity and performance. Social and interpersonal factors, motivation issues, lack of group cohesion and the general up-front churn that teams display as they form, are just a few of the areas where you can pick up immediate productivity improvements with a little bit of smart leadership.
Want to Lead? Answer These Questions! #6 of 7
The first five questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical. If you’ve made it through the investigation of questions 1-5, it’s time for you to consider your new world of accountability.
A Vote for Impracticality in Pursuit of Mid-Life Renewal
One of the reasons that I love working with early career professionals is that many of them still believe that they are going to change the world in their own small or very large way. If only we could bottle some of these early dreams and tap into them later in life.
Leadership Caffeine™: Developing as a Senior Contributor
I regularly use the label “Senior Contributor” (SC) to reference a state of management maturity that tends to exist somewhere between upper mid-level management or senior knowledge worker and the executive layer. The SC is a professional (manager or individual contributor) on the brink of executive qualifications and someone that has displayed effective formal and informal leadership skills, value-creating critical and strategic thinking abilities, credible executive presence and a strong operating and quality orientation.
Want to Lead? What Skills Do I Need to Succeed? #5 of 7
The first four questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical: Why do you want to lead? Do you understand the true role of a leader? Do you understand that the skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the skills that will carry you forward? Are you prepared to give up your domain expertise as your foundation for results?
If you’ve made it through the investigation of questions 1-4, it’s time for you to focus in on what it takes to be successful as a leader.
6 Steps for Avoiding Groupthink on Your Team
Groupthink is one of the nefarious decision-making missteps of teams, and a trap that many smart people and groups have fallen victim to throughout history. From the classic example cited in nearly every discussion on decision-making, the Kennedy administration’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, to Ford’s launch of the Edsel, to Neviille Chamberlin’s inner circle that believed peace with Hitler was at hand, Groupthink has earned a prominent place in our culture. And while you might not be planning an invasion or negotiation with evil dictators or planning on launching an ugly automobile, chances are that Groupthink has show up from time to time in your professional world.
Lessons On Managing Oneself
In his classic article, “Managing Oneself,” (HBR, 1999), the late, great management thinker, Peter Drucker, offered the following: “We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: if you’ve got ambition, drive and smarts, you can rise to the top of your profession-regardless of where you started out. But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their knowledge workers’ careers. Rather, we must each be our own chief executive officer.” Have you declared yourself CEO of your own career?