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Management Week in Review for March 4, 2011

Mar 4, 2011

Every week, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. Fair warning: I take a broad view of management, so my selections will range from leadership to innovation to finance and personal development and beyond. This week’s selections feature content on reinventing management, the strategic and practical implications of upgrade plans for consumer electronics products and some guidance on improving our decision-making by better utilizing outside advisors. Enjoy!

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Nine Key Professional Capabilities Required By Our Times

Jan 19, 2011

There’s no doubt we live in interesting times…a true Dickensian Best of Times, Worst of Times environment, filled with remarkable opportunities and equally remarkable personal, competitive, societal and global challenges. Over the past few years and few thousand contacts with professionals on the topic(s) of developing as a professional and developing as a leader, a number of key “capabilities needed for success in these times” have emerged as recurring themes in discussions and group settings. Importantly, these themes or as I describe them, Capabilities, Attributes & Behaviors (CABs) are essential for success at both the individual and organizational levels.

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Want to Change the World? Don’t Forget to Build Your Business Model

Jan 12, 2011

Over the past few weeks, I’ve connected with some brilliant individuals in multiple entrepreneurial organizations. In every instance, I heard some form of “We want to change the world” as these high-energy individuals described their ideas and their motivation. I love “change the world ideas” put forth by people passionate about doing something new, doing something better and helping others along the way. There’s no way I can avoid cheering for these teams. However, I can worry for them. Here’s why…

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At Least 3 Reasons We’re Still Raving About Lousy Leaders

Nov 16, 2010

I’ll wager a month’s worth of coffee that if you asked everyone that you know to generate a list on what makes an effective leader, the output would be nearly identical. So if this construct of an effective leader is so readily apparent, why is there a nearly endless supply of disgruntled workers capable of describing lousy leader horror stories to anyone that will listen?

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The Leader’s Role in Promoting Innovation

Nov 13, 2010

If the role of a leader wasn’t challenging enough, let’s pile on one more abstract but critical challenge to the heavy lifting already required by leaders in this fast-changing world: promoting a culture of innovation.

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Leadership Caffeine™: Managing Risk Without Stifling Experimentation

Nov 8, 2010

The art and science of management is much about coping with risk. There are few certain outcomes in business, and that’s particularly true when we factor in the reality that people are darned complex and don’t always act rationally. More often than not, I see managers and leaders looking at their world through the eyes of “what can go wrong?” and basing their decisions solely on attempting to minimize those identified adverse outcomes. Here are 5 ideas that leaders can use to help experimentation flourish on their teams.

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Leadership Caffeine™-Stuck in a Rut? Try These Ideas On for Size

Oct 25, 2010

There’s an awful bad case of the “serious” malady running through our society right now, and for just a moment, we all deserve to unclench our jaws, breathe and even form that rare but powerful facial expression, the smile.

Consider this my attempt (albeit a weak one, I’m certain) to take a little of the seriousness out of your day while offering ideas that might just have something to them. Or, they might not, but, I’ll leave that for you to judge.

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The Anachronistic and Oxymoronic Tyranny of Marketing Control

Sep 22, 2010

The new world of marketing frightens many experienced marketing professionals. For those accustomed to believing that they have some form of inalienable right to control everything that is said or published about their firm in the name of “managing the brand,” these are difficult times, indeed.

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