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Read Art’s Latest Article: Leadership and the Millennials at CW Bulletin

May 6, 2009

For those of you that have followed this blog, heard me speak or have been a participant in one of my MBA classes or workshops, you know that I’ve opted for the dissenting opinion on this youngest generation in the workforce. I am a huge fan!

I was thrilled when the professionals at CW Bulletin, the on-line supplement to Communication World magazine invited me to share my thoughts on this new generation and to offer some guidance for leaders on how to harness the talents and fire of these young knowledge workers. The result is my latest article, aptly named: Leadership and the Millennials.

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What Leadership List Are You On?

May 5, 2009

At the beginning of my leadership workshops, one of the ice-breaking activities is to have the participants think about and jot down the characteristics and behaviors of great and lousy leaders that they’ve experienced in their careers. It’s always fun to watch the small groups attack this task with relish.

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Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Lead with Passion!

May 4, 2009

The passion that a leader brings to his or her work is the secret sauce in a winning recipe for creating an effective working environment and developing a high performance team.

Good leaders understand their role, work hard on developing credibility, listen and ask questions and provide coaching and mentoring. Great leaders do all of that and they infuse everyone around them with a sense of excitement for the adventure.

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Improving Your Odds of Success in Driving Change

Apr 28, 2009

There is a fascinating article on Change Management in a recent issue (Issue 2/2009) of the McKinsey Quarterly (subscription required) by Carolyn Aiken and Scott Keller, entitled: “The Irrational Side of Change Management.”

And while much has been written over the years on this important and vexing topic, the authors offer some insights and ideas that they describe as counter-intuitive, but potentially helpful in improving your odds of success with these initiatives. This article alone was for me worth the hefty annual subscription price.

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Nine Power Techniques for Building Your Leadership Credibility

Apr 24, 2009

Whether you are a first-time leader, an experienced manager taking over a new team or an informal leader such as a project or product manager, you will be as successful as you are credible. Your credibility is your professional bedrock. Build on it carefully and constantly.

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Know Your Mission-More Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle

Apr 21, 2009

For this second installment of the business rules that my friend Paul Byrne and I derived from watching the movie the Memphis Belle (see my first installment: Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle-Rule #1), I am departing from the order in which we originally wrote the rules.

Instead, because it is a concept so fundamental to our success in anything we do, I am jumping to Rules 11, 16 and 19, all of which underscore the importance of being totally “mission aware”. Without a sense of our mission, the rest of the rules are meaningless.

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Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week-Expect the Extraordinary

Apr 19, 2009

This week’s boost of leadership energy comes straight from one of my early career mentors. This truly exceptional individual practiced leadership according to 5 simple handwritten rules that he kept posted on the wall in his office for everyone to see.

These rules pointed to his True North as a leader, and were the first words that he would read every morning, right after securing his first of many cups of coffee for the day. They read…

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From Strategic Planning to Strategic Conversations

Apr 16, 2009

While there is no doubt that strategic planning done right is a valuable management process and tool, in my opinion, we need to change both the vernacular and the approaches to move from strategic planning to conducting strategic conversations. Frankly, I want everyone in my firm thinking, talking and relating their work activities to the firm’s strategies for creating customer value and thumping competitors.

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