The Leadership Caffeine Blog

Leadership Caffeine™—Lessons for Transformation Learned in the Northwoods

Leadership Caffeine™—Lessons for Transformation Learned in the Northwoods

Our organization changes don’t feel like the work of transforming a shoreline or beach, but maybe they should. Imagine if the transformation team members viewed themselves as stewards of the environment and not experts playing with boxes on an organization chart in pursuit of trivial outcomes. I suspect more of those initiatives would succeed. 

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Leadership Caffeine™—Rethinking New Manager Training and Development

Leadership Caffeine™—Rethinking New Manager Training and Development

If you consider the myriad activities that form the role of manager, including the novel and often vexing situations presented by humans in the workplace, it’s easy to see where attempts at classroom training inevitably fall short. Use the time initially to teach them to think differently about their roles and their work at start-up using these five sets of operating instructions

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The Great Capitulation: Here’s Why You’re Losing Too Many Good People

The Great Capitulation: Here’s Why You’re Losing Too Many Good People

Here’s a Fun-Fact from my Career Reinvent Boot Camp programs: 50% of participants would prefer to reinvent their careers (change what they do) without leaving your organization. Unfortunately, most of them end up leaving your firm. Here’s why and here are some ideas you can rethink your approach to career development in your organization:

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Leadership Caffeine™—Who Are You?

Leadership Caffeine™—Who Are You?

While many individuals deliberately keep their work personas and their personal personas separate, I checked, and each of us is one person. Yet, the faster you grow comfortable letting them see you as that whole person, the faster they’ll trust you. And yes, trust is the critical foundation for high performance.

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Think Differently About Professional Development Investments

Think Differently About Professional Development Investments

Having spent millions of dollars of my budget and many hundreds of hours of my time, and probably tens of thousands of hours of the combined time of my team members, I’ve cultivated some strong likes/dislikes and some powerful lessons learned. Use these in outstanding professional development health with your teams and colleagues.

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Leadership Caffeine™—The Five Building Blocks of the Healthy Working Environment

Leadership Caffeine™—The Five Building Blocks of the Healthy Working Environment

It’s always bothered me that building a healthy working environment isn’t described in most managerial job descriptions. This is the most important work a manager can engage in to strengthen engagement and performance, yet working on the working environment is ignored in the daily rush for results. In this article, I offer ideas and approaches to help managers jump-start this critical work.

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Leadership Caffeine™—Rethinking Your Team’s Business Reviews and Operating Approach

Leadership Caffeine™—Rethinking Your Team’s Business Reviews and Operating Approach

While I’ve not attended your business review session, I can tell you with confidence born of experience that most of these events are painful time, productivity, and morale killers. And, in this world where COVID has taught us that quarters are like centuries and the world shifts in hours and days, I increasingly find the ubiquitous quarterly business reviews anachronistic. It’s time to change your team’s operating approach.

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