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10 of My Favorite Dumb Ass Management Mistakes

In the spirit of my post, “At Least 20 Things to Stop Doing as a Leader,” which has grown well north of 50 thanks to a deluge of reader comments, I’m back with a list of some insanely stupid and all-too-common management mistakes. These focus more on the decisions, actions or inactions that contribute to creating even bigger problems. While I’ve remained on the positive side of the law here (felons, you’ve had your day!), some of these mistakes are truly criminal. Please feel free to chime in with your additions.

By |2016-10-22T17:11:45-05:00December 7th, 2010|Career, Decision-Making, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy|9 Comments
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Team Conflict? As Long as It’s Not Personal, Run With It

I’m leery of happy teams. Don’t get me wrong. I like positive experiences and working with happy people, however, in my experience, the happy teams are the ones that produce mediocre results or, they don’t produce at all. Give me a group of people that show up to do battle on the issues versus the team that strives for peace and harmony, any day.

By |2016-10-22T17:11:50-05:00July 21st, 2010|Decision-Making, Leadership, Project Management|6 Comments
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6 Steps for Avoiding Groupthink on Your Team

Groupthink is one of the nefarious decision-making missteps of teams, and a trap that many smart people and groups have fallen victim to throughout history. From the classic example cited in nearly every discussion on decision-making, the Kennedy administration’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, to Ford’s launch of the Edsel, to Neviille Chamberlin’s inner circle that believed peace with Hitler was at hand, Groupthink has earned a prominent place in our culture. And while you might not be planning an invasion or negotiation with evil dictators or planning on launching an ugly automobile, chances are that Groupthink has show up from time to time in your professional world.

By |2016-10-22T17:11:50-05:00July 8th, 2010|Decision-Making, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy|10 Comments
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Leadership Caffeine™-Teach Your Team to Make Better Decisions

If you were to embark upon a rugged and lonely journey to the top of the mountain to ask for enlightenment from the Oracle of Management, I suspect that you would be left with the words “decision-making” to ponder on your long walk back to civilization. And in spite of the lack of a concrete answer from this journey, I’ll throw in my two-cents worth that decision-making is in fact the essence of management. It’s also darned hard to do, difficult to teach and challenging to get right more often than not.

By |2016-10-22T17:11:55-05:00March 14th, 2010|Decision-Making, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Product Management, Project Management, Strategy|1 Comment
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Leadership Caffeine™-Develop the Courage to Derail the Bad Decision Train

The “bad decision train” is difficult to stop or derail once it gets moving. It seems to take extra-ordinary courage to admit that you are wrong. A combination of ego and fear often prevail, driving us to go all-in when we should fold and walk away. While the instinct to pursue bad decisions with more bad decisions might be difficult to overcome, it is critical that leaders fight this tendency by fostering a culture that encourages teams and individuals to challenge decisions, particularly when new facts and lessons learned begin to point towards a different direction.

By |2016-10-22T17:11:59-05:00November 9th, 2009|Decision-Making, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Project Management|8 Comments
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Leadership Caffeine™ for the Week: Coffee, Your Health and 8 Suggestions to Improve Your Team’s Problem Solving Skills

The best learning opportunities in the workplace occur when individuals or teams come face to face with a vexing problem. These situations provide outstanding growth opportunities and a great chance to generate and implement innovative and creative solutions. Of course, the manager has to play by the rules. Unfortunately, there are still a few managers and leaders out there that insist on spoiling these ripe learning opportunities by requiring you to follow a specific approach or steps in solving a problem.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:08-05:00June 8th, 2009|Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine|2 Comments
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Leadership Caffeine™ for the New Week: Bad Coffee and The Tyranny of Consensus

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.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:09-05:00May 18th, 2009|Career, Decision-Making, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leading Change|7 Comments
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Leadership Lessons from the Road

One of the great things about leading workshops with talented professionals is how much I learn about the very real challenges that people face in trying to get work done inside their organizations. After spending a day together working with a group technical professionals at The Data Warehouse Institute's World Conference, I gained some insights into the challenges and barriers that are slowing down progress and inhibiting performance improvements inside organizations.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:13-05:00February 27th, 2009|Career, Decision-Making, Leadership, Project Management|2 Comments
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