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In Search of the High Performance Project Team

If the informal survey results above are even remotely close to reality, many/most people have not had the experience to participate on a high performance project team. While successfully managing projects is a tough task, I do not believe that we are dealing with a degree of impossibility. If project success is critical to your organization’s advancement, everyone from the CEO on down has a vested interest in ensuring that greater than 10% of the project teams take on the characteristics of a high-performance environment.

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Leadership and the Winning Environment

From selecting and supporting the right people to caring enough to provide the tools, mentoring and constructive feedback, this leader, whether CEO, Shift Supervisor or High School Tennis Coach, is truly responsible for creating an environment that breeds success. Success as we know, tends to breed more success. It’s a wonderful, vicious cycle.

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Your Next Boss Might Just Be a 20-something Level 5 Guild Leader

While to most it might seem implausible or even laughable that the leaders of tomorrow are applying skills developed from years of what we viewed as “wasting time” by playing on-line games, it merits some consideration. Certainly most organizations completely drop the ball on effectively identifying and developing leadership talent, and my own experience and research indicates that where most (new) leaders struggle is in the area of soft skills and feedback. You don’t learn how to lead from a book or sitting in a classroom at graduate school, so who’s to say that the on-line gaming environment is not an outstanding and risk-free way to develop leadership acumen.

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Values-Based Leadership: More of What I Learned at Matsushita

I reflected on the Basic Business Principles as the values are known at Matsushita, when I co-authored the Values for a future employer, and I reflect and draw upon them regularly as I teach sections on Values-Focused Leadership in workshops and classrooms. A typical session will end with a majority of participants highlighting how they never understood until now how powerful the corporate values could be in strengthening their culture, driving performance and guiding behavior. This is a valuable lesson to learn for all of us.

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Three Simple, Low Cost Ideas to Help Jump-Start Leadership Development

Jump-starting a leadership development activity does not require a tremendous investment in program development, outside consultants or big company meetings. Sometimes the best results come from simple approaches, and anything that gets people talking about the right issues can serve as a starting-point. The key point is for you to do something. Any or all of these three simple ideas can get you started.

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Planning to Recognize Failure-The Project Manager’s Guide to Preventing Project Calamity

Every Project Manager with a few years of experience under his or her belt can likely recall at least one example of a major project that lived on long after the plug should have been pulled and the project canceled. The best (or worst) examples are the ego-driven initiatives of top executives that can’t let go for fear of losing face by admitting defeat.

More than a few organizations have been taken to or pushed over the edge by these self-anointed visionaries bent on changing their corporate world with some grand project. Once invested, they cannot let go, and if left unchecked, the results can be nothing short of disastrous for the organization.

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Staying Strong in the Middle While Your Company Is Falling Apart

There are no magic answers for taking a horrible company situation and suddenly making it better. There are also no guarantees that your heroic efforts will save the day. However, as a professional and an emerging leader, these are the situations that test your skills, that challenge you to mature and that give you the tools to succeed the rests of your career. If you plan on walking through the door in the morning, show up prepared to fight for your firm. And when you walk out the door at night, remember the wise words of a good friend: “Family and health count, all the rest of this stuff is just politics and money.” Keep it in context.

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The Carnival of Human Resources-A Great Content Source

The Carnival of Human Resources, Installment #32 is live today at the Maximize Possibility blog. One click leads you to 27 great blog postings on all things people, leadership and business. Go ahead and check it out. You will be glad that you did. Thanks to Jake Flanagin for running my post on “Strategy Bursts.” It’s in some great company with thefeatured bloggers.

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