I know – you work in engineering, or marketing, or IT, or maybe in finance, but you are still in sales. Sure maybe you can write fantastic code – but if no one know this you may find yourself in professional Siberia. And if you think you’re not in sales, your days are numbered. In […]
The other day John Sweeney came down to the studio and shared his wit and energy. He has applied his remarkable presence and sincerity to help people and organizations accelerate their innovation by bringing the philosophies and creativity of theater to the workplace. With his wife, he owns and operates the oldest running comedy workshop […]
There’s a lot of talk in organizations about accelerating the speed of innovation in order to respond quickly to market shifts. This intuitively makes sense – particularly in today’s global economy. If you can’t innovate fast enough, the market changes, the competition eclipses you, etc. . . Or conversely if you innovate too quickly and […]
Talent! It seems in every professional conversation someone sprinkles in expressions like “attracting talent” or “retaining the talent.” I first heard the expression working in television and film where “the talent” was a reference to the on-camera personality. Talent isn’t rare or in scarce quantities – talented people are everywhere in your organization. They just […]
Pat Dixon shares this frightening story about investment bankers who don’t understand the very products they construct and bring to market. It’s definitely an amusing story but after the laughter subsides, realization sets in that people like this exist in the world and can construct such unnecessary and senseless complex investment tools, which can bring […]
Many managers spend considerable amounts of time and energy to co-opt whole populations across teams to build consensus for a change initiative. We can spend enormous amounts of energy trying to pull all parties into the tent, working to ensure that as many people at all levels of the organization are on board. Of course […]
Just the other day I had an encounter with a provider telling me there isn’t enough money and we can’t possibly accomplish a business task because we simply don’t have the resources. Better ask someone else in the organization to pony up the cash. We huddled and solved it another way – and it wasn’t […]
ABC – always be closing. If you’re in sales, you’ve heard that numerous times, most famously maybe from Glengarry Glen Ross. Unless you’re selling lemonade on the street corner – and even if – this is no way to go about building relationships of integrity that will sustain. The most powerful way to build business […]
Effective coaching isn’t complicated, and mostly it isn’t about you. According to Marshall Goldsmith, the key to effective coaching is more about asking the right questions than providing answers. Since people only change if they want to, the most valuable thing you can do as a leader is to pose the right kinds of questions […]
We’re producing a live, interactive event on Feb 26th with Jonas Ridderstråle and I can’t wait. Yesterday I peeked at his slide deck and he’s got this killer quote: “Hierarchy is an organization with its face to the CEO and its ass to the customer.” Some attribute this to Jonas Ridderstråle and Kjell Nordström’s book, […]