While it’s clear our guts don’t do any heavy lifting when it comes to making decisions, that sense we describe as “gut feeling” is something most of us rely on to guide us through life’s challenges. However, there are at least 3 key situations where senior leaders should develop the discipline to quality check their gut instincts:
Senior leaders value employees who are proven operators AND who are capable of looking at the bigger picture and providing help in developing the way forward for the business. Your ability to cultivate both sets of skills will help you strengthen your professional value proposition and help differentiate you from your peers. This differentiation might just be the meaningful issue for that next promotion. Here are 6 Question Sets to jump-start your strategic curiosity:
The most successful professionals I’ve worked with all share at least one common attribute…they are all innately curious and in search of ideas to solve problems and exploit perceived opportunities. These people are Big Idea Hunters, and they view problems, challenges and even the status quo as giant invitations to change, emblazoned in neon lights. Here are some of the curious habits of these creative individuals and how you might apply the lessons yourself or with your own team:
There are few environments more hostile to forming something resembling a functional team, than a group of people comprised of senior managers. Whether you are a member of one of these groups or the CEO in charge, it’s healthy to recognize some of the facts and myths of senior management teams and adapt your behaviors and approaches accordingly.
Just about all of us are guilty of delaying dealing with a tough topic in our professional lives. These tend to be the gut churning, stare at the ceiling at night type issues that if addressed, will force us to confront our fears, admit our mistakes, move away from the known towards the unknown and generally unsettle ourselves and potentially those around us. Here are 10 issues we love to delay and my hearty encouragement to pick yours and get going!
Teaching others to employ effective decision-making processes is one of the most important and often ignored responsibilities of those in leadership roles. Unfortunately, training your team to look to you for the calls on how to fix problems and move forward is much easier than teaching your team members to stand on their own for most issues.
As a lifelong team participant and now devotee of leveraging the power of teams, I was fascinated and excited to see the article, “The New Science of Building Great Teams,” in the April, 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review. I suspect we are all for adding some science to the stick, squishy and often problematic issue of how to get people to not only play nice together in the sandbox, but how to do so at a sustained high-level of performance. Here are a few thoughts and “blink reactions” to this interesting article and study:
Look for the latest issue of the Leadership Caffeine Newsletter (subscriber only content) next week. And in case you missed it, here are links to Art’s posts on decision-making, strategy and career survival from last week. Enjoy your weekend!
Nothing happens without a decision. Nothing good happens without the right decision. And, in case you doubt the need to focus on making better decisions, spend some time skimming the news. If you’ve kept up with your health and fitness resolutions thus far this year, you know that even minor adjustments in diet and exercise pay big dividends. The same goes for our individual and group decision-making approaches. Here are 5 key questions and suggestions for strengthening your team’s decision-making processes.
Decisions propel people, teams and organizations forward. Get more right than wrong…especially the big ones, and the only thing standing in the way of success is the critical issue of execution. And of course, most decisions start with a discussion. One of your...
