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Leading the Project? Define Your Charter to Support High Performance

Mar 27, 2015

It’s hard to argue with either of these statements, nonetheless, too many project managers deeply skilled in the mechanics of their vocation fall short on learning and practicing the soft-skills critical for high performance team development. When project fail…and too many do, there’s a safe bet that people-related issues are key contributors to the initiative’s demise. Great project managers define their role beyond the project mechanics liberally. Here are 7 steps to help you define and begin using your own Project Leader’s Charter in pursuit of high performance:

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Art of Managing—Helping Your Firm Navigate a Level-Up Situation

Feb 22, 2015

As managers, it’s our sacred responsibility to create and continuously improve an environment that allows our people to do their best work. Few managers would disagree with their responsibility and accountability for creating this effective environment. Like breathing, it’s a good idea to invest time and energy in practices that promote a healthy, efficient and effective system. In reality, many firms do a good job on this in stable markets. However, when faced with the need to adapt or change due to market disruptions, too many firms struggle to change their system to support the pursuit of new. Here are 7 ideas to help managers avoid the most common mistakes as they venture forward into uncharted territory:

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Art of Managing—The Quest to Sustain Success

Jan 13, 2015

The business and management equivalent of The Quest of mythology and story is the pursuit of the secret ingredients…the behaviors, actions and approaches that if adopted, will allow one firm to outperform (measured by one or more of: growth, profitability, innovation, share price, market capitalization) a peer group for an extended period of time. Here are 7 core behaviors for successful management teams to adopt that will help them survive with their quest to sustain success:

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Art of Managing—Steering Clear of Flail and Fail

Dec 18, 2014

Businesses of all sizes, shapes and ages run into rough patches. Rapid growth, disruptive competitors or technologies, regulatory changes or the end of the road for well-worn strategies are all potential culprits in the move from success to struggle. It’s critical at this point for a firm’s leaders and managers to react carefully and appropriately in this unfamiliar terrain or they risk moving quickly from flail to fail. They invite flailure. Here are 5 ideas to stem the tide when the flailing starts:

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Art of Managing—Strengthen Performance by Clarifying Your Firm’s Values

Nov 24, 2014

Successful companies in my experience operate with a set of clearly understood, actionable values. These values transcend behavior and point to purpose, direction and approach. Most of the time, they are codified or articulated however, in the case of some smaller or start-up organizations, they are present in the environment even if they are missing from the framed artwork on the wall. If your values aren’t working incredibly hard to support your firm every day, it’s time to consider a refresh.

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Art of Managing—Moving Beyond A Failure to Execute

Oct 29, 2014

Resolving the failure to execute problem is much more like a long-term fitness program than a quick weight-loss diet. It involves changing the thinking about what’s most important for organizational health and success and doing the hard work of developing new habits that support continuous improvement. Here are 7 ideas to help you begin developing some healthy new habits:

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Art of Managing—Don’t Set Artificial Limits on Employee Involvement

Sep 15, 2014

A firm’s senior leaders and managers are supposed to feel the weight of responsibility for the health of their organization. It comes with the job. However, no one suggested they bear the weight of the worries or the burden of finding the solutions in silence and without ample support from the broader employee population. Here are 6 ideas to help you jump-start improved employee involvement in strengthening your business:

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Art of Managing—It’s Your Job to Bring Your Firm’s Values to Life

Sep 10, 2014

I’ve long been a student of the values that organizations espouse. They are after all an attempt to encapsulate the accepted and aspirational behaviors of the firm’s employees and officers. And while words on the wall or in the placard are typically interesting, noble and even somewhat predictable, what’s truly fascinating is to compare and contrast the behaviors of people in an organization to the values statements hanging on the wall. Sadly, in too many organizations, the values statements are corporate furniture. Here are some thoughts on how you can help bring your firm’s values to life and strengthen performance in the process:

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