The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Our Early 2021 Professional and Career Development Programs
It’s humbling. I just sent a note of thanks to a client from last year who signed up for one of my new programs in early 2021. Her response floored me. “We received a bonus this year, and this seemed like a great way to use it.” Talk about motivation (and pressure!)...
Our Early 2021 Professional and Career Development Programs
We create programs to help people achieve things they never thought possible in their careers. From first-time managers to senior executives, career reinventors, people navigating challenging conversations, or individuals working to level up, we strive to bring this purpose to life in everything we do.
Leader, What’s Your Questions to Comments Ratio?
Effective leaders understand that the respectful use of questioning is a powerful performance enhancement tool in the workplace. A leader’s questions challenge individuals and teams to look at issues from all angles and they help uncover ideas or suggestions that require a bit more baking.
The Pain and Promise of Collaborative Management on Display at Cisco
It’s an exciting time to be leading as the pendulum seems to be swinging away from a style of leading and working that minimized the value of the individual to one that emphasizes empowerment, creativity and the freedom for groups and individuals to think and act. It’s hard to imagine a future where this formula does not produce winners.
Planning Ahead for the Week: Three Items for Your Management Excellence “To Do” List
Every week represents an opportunity to improve your performance as a manager and leader. In spite of the setbacks of the prior week, the fire drills that caught you by surprise and your own lack of follow-through on your goals, every Monday offers a clean slate for you to fill. My very positive intent here is to offer you a few suggestions each week that will inspire your pursuit of continuous improvement. Enjoy and Prosper!
Your “Weekend Reading List” from Management Excellence
Beginning with this post, I intend to make “Your Weekend Reading List” a regular Friday feature. Most professionals that I know are too busy to carve out quality reading time during the week, and many have confided that they wish they would be more diligent about reading on the weekend. While I won’t be there to help you pick up the book or click on the link, I can at least try and remove the “I’m not sure what to read” excuse from your arsenal.
Is it Time to Tune Up Your Firm’s Values?
While Mission is the “reason for being” of a firm, the organization’s clearly stated Values are supposed to define critical behaviors, offer context for decision-making and generally serve as bedrock for defining culture. And like Mission descriptions, the Values are often collections of lofty thoughts that are so far removed from the minds and actions of employees as to be nearly useless.
The Counterintuitive Nature of Management Excellence
It takes no management skill whatsoever to spend a fortune building up clicks and it definitely takes no skill to slash budgets, cut headcount, freeze programs and hunker down and wait out the storm.
It does take remarkable management courage and skill to run against the crowd and conventional wisdom by investing in strategic initiatives and talent during tough times and resisting the temptation to chase mythical fortunes during boom times.
Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times: Rethinking Customer Segmentation
Rethinking your customer segmentation model is a potentially powerful approach for differentiating versus key competitors and for finding new needs that you can fulfill with your core capabilities. Experiment with the various ideas and strengthen your team’s execution skills in the process. In additional to the potential tremendous upside from solving customer problems, the energy and excitement generated during this process will convert the organization’s “sense of fear” into a “sense of urgency.”
Improve Strategy and Execution Planning with Project Management Practices
The application of professional project management practices to the strategic planning and execution program development cycles of an organization can eliminate many of the common pitfalls that derail these programs. While the Project Manager cannot guarantee that the insights and actions developed during strategy are the right ones, he/she can take away the organizational-risk that so often rears its head to doom the best intended initiatives.
Sustaining Performance Excellence in Business and in Life
It genuinely bothers me when organizations spend years and untold dollars reinventing themselves and succeeding with a quality framework (i.e. Baldrige or Six Sigma) only to show up in the business press as an organization fighting for survival. Achieving milestones and winning awards helps reinforce the progress on the journey, but leaders at all levels have to foster a culture that is perpetually dissatisfied. The fact is that the market never sleeps, customer issues/needs change constantly and there are always competitors interested in taking your share of the customer’s budge