by Art Petty | Dec 6, 2016 | Career, Leadership, Leading Change, Strategy
I love the idea of leveling up in our careers and organizations. This term, borrowed from the world of video-gaming describes the fundamental challenge for all of us and all of our firms in this era. Nonetheless, not everyone gets it. During a recent discussion with a...
by Art Petty | Nov 27, 2016 | Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Strategy
Until you’ve led a team or firm through a crisis, it’s difficult to know what to do much less how to do it. If you’re an employee of a firm facing a crisis, chances are you feel like a helpless occupant of a car watching from the backseat as it careens out of control....
by Art Petty | Oct 7, 2016 | Career, Leadership, Strategy
In an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “McDonald’s Knows It’s Losing the Burger Battle—Can it Come Back,” the chief executive suggests, “the company is trying new things and rethinking legacy beliefs.” That sounds like a...
by Art Petty | Aug 28, 2016 | Art of Managing, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Strategy
“Past performance is an indicator of future success.” While our financial documents state just the opposite as it relates to investment performance, we run our organizations as if it were a hard fast rule. In many circumstances, it’s a trap. Any recent job...
by Art Petty | Aug 21, 2016 | High Performance Management Teams, Leadership, Strategy
Strategy never happens in a straight line. It’s a journey filled with zigs and zags and fateful decisions. If it’s easy or fast, or is magically generated from a template, it’s probably not strategy. Leaders who take this work seriously understand the existential...
by Art Petty | Aug 15, 2016 | Art of Managing, Leadership, Strategy
I once worked for a firm that reorganized every April. You could set your watch by it. Nothing important or innovative happened from January to June. Even at my young age, it was clear after a couple of cycles that the reorganization was a political chess game that...
