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A Follow-Up to My “Evil Leaders” post: Your Firm’s Values Have No Teeth

Jun 5, 2009

My recent post, “Why Do Evil Leaders Flourish in Some Organizations” struck a chord or at least a nerve for many, as the many insightful comments quickly outstripped the value of the original post. Thanks to all that jumped in and shared on this topic.

On the heels of what turned out to be a deluge of good thoughts on why some leaders and some people get away with less than agreeable (to the rest of us) behaviors in the workplace, I keep coming back to the topic of Values as a core issue.

The results of my informal polling as well as my formal surveying (as part of culture assessments) indicates that for many organizations, values exist as nice statements in a frame with little meaning or use in day-to-day business dealings.

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Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Bad Coffee and The Tyranny of Consensus

May 18, 2009

Like bad coffee, I’m not particularly fond of leading by consensus or even seeking consensus as a decision-making tool. I’ve long viewed managing by consensus as a “Tyranny of Mediocrity” approach to leading and making decisions. In seeking consensus, compromises are made that eliminate the more radical, revolutionary innovations and settle on solutions that make as many parties as possible happy.

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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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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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Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Creating Time to Get Stuff Done

Apr 13, 2009

A number of my last few posts have focused on thinking big, and a wise reader pointed out that with all of the dreaming and visioning he has been doing at my bequest, he’s falling hopelessly behind in his work.

Fair point, so grab a cup of something hot, along with a pen and paper, and don’t get too comfortable. After all, who has time to read blog posts all day, when there’s work to be done! This one’s short and sweet!

In my opinion, there’s still no substitute for the A, B, C list. It doesn’t matter if you create it on your p.c., on a notepad or on your iphone, just create one and use it to guide where you focus your time. The key is in establishing the proper criteria for prioritizing your tasks.

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Help Wanted: Visionaries and Dreamers-Safe Return Doubtful

Apr 8, 2009

While it has never been substantiated that the explorer and leader Ernest Shackleton actually placed this ad, these few short sentences have taken on a life of their own. They read:

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”

There are those in this world that run towards these types of opportunities and others that run away as fast as they can. I’ve always been inspired by individuals that look beyond the here and now and issues of the moment to see and seize the opportunity to do something great.

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Detoxing Your Team

Apr 7, 2009

Most of us can recall working with someone that had such a strong, negative impact on the work environment that you could literally feel the emotional mood swing when this person walked into a meeting.

For some unknown reason, perhaps a karmic-imbalance in the universe, these toxic characters have the unnerving and disconcerting tendency to be great survivors. While it is easy to intuit that toxic employees are value destroyers, we’ve been short on hard data about the true impact that these individuals have on the work environment. Until now.

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Inspiration and Hope: Encouraging Sound Bites in a Challenging World

Mar 10, 2009

There’s enough negative going around. Here’s a few worth reading that will leave you thinking and maybe even feeling a bit more upbeat. Students of strategy and performance excellence might want to take a closer look at how McDonald’s is using leadership, strategy, customer relations and information to successfully beat back the economic doldrums. And for an extended dose of hope and encouragement, check out the March issue of Fast Company, where the focus is on the world’s most innovative companies.

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