Leadership Archives

Management Lessons From the Memphis Belle-Rule #1

We were in the early days of our trench warfare trying to save the company, so it was natural that we felt a kinship with the pilot and crew of the Belle. As we drank and watched, we began to discover business rules and management lessons within the war-movie plot. By the time we were done, we had Ten Rules of Management From The Memphis Belle. Then, Paul came up with an 11th. I cussed and said “you can’t just have an odd number like 11” - so we replayed the movie in our heads and thought of 9 more. And thus we discovered the 20 Lessons From The Memphis Belle. We had them printed up on little cards and handed them out to employees. We gifted them to strategic partners and customers. We printed them on posters and hung them in our offices. When we ran into a hard issue in the business we would refer to the Rules: more often than not there was a rule that was right on point. Each time we’d be amazed, but then we’d say: “Ah! The Rules know all!”

By Eric Lieberman|2024-08-08T13:46:17-05:00March 26th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Values in Action-Helping Your Son or Daughter Choose a College

For anyone who has lived through the process of supporting their son or daughter in the search for a college, it is a truly exciting, perplexing and tiring endeavor. It’s also an opportunity to watch values in action at the various institutions as well as with your own child as they wrestle with what is to them a monumental choice.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:18-05:00March 24th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™ for the Week of March 22, 2009

One of the great things about my view on innovation is that it’s not the sole domain of the engineers, researchers and technologists. My definition of innovation might invite a bit of controversy, but it allows me to extend it to everyone and every function in an organization. There are no boundaries that limit where innovation can take place. The faster you get people focused on problem-solving and in the mindset of “seizing opportunities,” the more effective you will be at pushing fear out the door in favor of value creating activities. It’s time to push the “GO” button on your innovation machine.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:19-05:00March 22nd, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|4 Comments

“It’s Simple” and The Six C’s that Enable High Performance

Sometimes we learn lessons in interesting ways. I learned the power of "keeping things simple" in an amusing but instructive manner from an early mentor at Panasonic. For leaders looking to manage complexity during these difficult times, I offer my own Six Power Tools for keeping things simple and driving high performance.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:22-05:00March 18th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

What’s Your High Performance Team Experience?

I love to talk with people that have led or been part of a high performance team (HPT). Their enthusiasm is palpable. These individuals have been to the promised land of corporate collaboration and achievement for a brief period in time and they are interested in going back. Unfortunately, my own formal and informal research indicates that only 30% of professionals surveyed would agree that they have been part of a high performance team. If you've been a part of this 30%, the other 70% of your peers would love to hear your story!

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:26-05:00March 11th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|4 Comments

Inspiration and Hope: Encouraging Sound Bites in a Challenging World

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.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:27-05:00March 10th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

Smile, Your Mirror Neurons are Firing Everyone Up & A Homework Assignment

Intuitively, it makes sense that leaders that are more engaged and engaging tend to elicit better responses and better results from their teams. Perhaps nice people can finish first. Now, the father of the concept of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (What Makes A Leader), along with Richard Boyatiz are pushing the envelope by integrating new research in social neuroscience with their studies of effective leaders. Their recent Harvard Business Review article, Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership, is fascinating reading for anyone intrigued by the role that our biological makeup plays in our leadership abilities.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:31-05:00March 6th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

The Recurring Labors of a Leader or, “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again”

It seems that Yogi Berra was right (that’s the former Yankee player and manager, not the Jellystone Park character on the lookout for a quick meal). One of the reasons that so much business writing and advice sounds familiar is that we conveniently keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, allowing new generations of pundits to dispense similar advice in new packaging. In a short piece entitled Learning from Heroes found in the March, 2009 Harvard Business Review, Jack Covert and Todd Satterson suggest that this recurring pattern in business actually mirrors the hero’s journey found in mythology.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:33-05:00March 4th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|1 Comment

Too Many Projects Chasing Too Few People-It’s Time to Learn to Say No!

One of the themes that I hear consistently in workshops and in discussions with the professionals in my MBA classes is frustration over the propensity of a firm’s leaders to never say “No” to a project. Lacking a viable mechanism to compare, evaluate and select and reject projects, decisions are made based on politics, gut feel and the squeaky customer wheel. The net result of this lack of discipline is that the people doing the work end up overloaded and overwhelmed. They operate in compliance mode, focusing on surviving until the next deadline and adding little creative value or innovation to their activities. You can end this chaos and rebuild your team's morale and effectiveness by building in new systems and proper rigor to project evaluation and selection.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:34-05:00March 3rd, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

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 Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:46:37-05:00February 27th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments