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, […]
Recently the Leadership Development Channel has been reviewed by Training Media Review and Bersin Research and we’ve been picking up some major kudos from the industry. We don’t want to over emphasize how great this video learning service is, but we thought it was cool enough to mention here in our journal. Bersin was kind […]
When Bill George was conducting research and interviews for his book, True North, he sat down with Howard Schultz who tells a compelling story of how, as a child, he watched his father get fired and abused by company after company. He promised himself that if he ever had the opportunity he would build a […]
I ripped through Vince Poscente‘s The Age of Speed in probably about the time it was intended to be read – an airplane ride. He had a fun chapter on those kinetic new-age knowledge working noise-makers, or what he calls “bottle rockets.” You know them – these are people who embrace speed over substance. Bottle […]