The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Help Aspiring Managers Explore and Experiment Before Leaping into the Role
Moving from contributor to manager is one of the most awkward transitions a person will undertake in their working life. It's an unnatural act, where you take almost everything you know about success in your day job and push it over into the "Never Mind" column. Then,...
Help Aspiring Managers Explore and Experiment Before Leaping into the Role
Moving from contributor to manager is one of the most awkward transitions a person will undertake in their working life. It’s an unnatural act, where you take almost everything you know about success in your day job and push it over into the “Never Mind” column.Instead of perpetuating the “hope” approach to identifying and developing new managers, try my favorite question, “Why manage?” three times, backed by some exploration and experimentation.
Life, Professional Development, Quality and the Art of Ceiling Painting
Our youngest son wraps up his high school career and like many families across the country, we are holding an open house for friends and neighbors to celebrate the event.
And like many husbands in similar situations across the country, I’m in charge of finishing up those chores that I put off all winter while I was writing Leadership and the Project Manager or teaching or delivering workshops or talking about performance excellence to industry groups.
Today’s chore is to paint the kitchen ceiling.
Like almost every job in life and in business, a successful outcome is a function of detailed preparation, a good plan and painstaking attention to the issues that potentially will impact the outcome. The patching, sanding, masking, cutting-in and thorough application of paint are all critical to the final outcome. Oh, and don’t forget the drop cloths to catch collateral spatter.
Fresh Voices: Management in the 21st Century
If you are fascinated as I am about the evolution of management and its role, form and function in our current and near future world, I strongly encourage you to check out Gary Hamel’s blog post (Help Reinvent Management for the 21st Century).
This is a case where the post prompts a flood of great thoughts and ideas from some sharp people from around the globe.
Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Your Message and the Chicken Salad Sandwich Test
Much of what passes for leadership conversation in the workplace is filled with unnecessary and meaningless jargon that gets in the way of the true message. It’s time to de-clutter our conversations and choose words that are meaningful and actionable to our team members.
The U.S. Memorial Day Weekend
For most Americans, the Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer. This long three day weekend tends to be filled with barbecues, picnics and sporting events. Take a moment out of your activities and barbecues this weekend to live up to the spirit of the order and Remember.
Sales and Marketing: Wake Up and Start Refining Your Leads
I was reminded yesterday of one of the fundamental failure points of many marketing and sales teams: lead management. This reminder was painful.
The short-story version is that in spite of tremendous advances in technology tools to analyze, monitor and manage sales leads in the three years since I’ve been charged with doing this, many (actually, the word used was “most”) firms are less than diligent in managing leads from the initial touch-point to final disposition.
The Drive to Create—Rocket Fuel for Entrepreneurs
I sat and talked yesterday with a uniquely impressive entrepreneur. She is not yet successful, and in fact she is barely two weeks young in her new adventure. If I was asked to handicap her chances of success, the odds would be very good.
Leadership and the Project Manager-Critical Skills for Success and a New e-Book
Great project managers are also great leaders. The best of the project managers are senior contributors that understand their role is more about helping the group succeed than it is about conducting status meetings and revising and distributing reports.
My new e-Book, Leadership and the Project Manager—Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance, was written to serve as a “Quick-Start” to developing as a senior contributor for anyone (certified or not) that is charged with leading and managing projects.
Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Bad Coffee and The Tyranny of Consensus
Like bad coffee, I’m not particularly fond of leading by consensus or even seeking consensus as a decision-making tool. I’ve long viewed managing by consensus as a “Tyranny of Mediocrity” approach to leading and making decisions. In seeking consensus, compromises are made that eliminate the more radical, revolutionary innovations and settle on solutions that make as many parties as possible happy.
Six Strategy and Leadership Lessons from Studying World War I
I often look through the lens of history for lessons in leadership and strategy that can be applied in business. Unfortunately, it seems as most of the pivotal events of human history involve wars.
And while war is an odious event, there are many lessons to learn—both good and bad from the leaders that give birth to the events as well as from the leaders and followers that prosecute them.