to be featured on the Blog page
We’ve been stressing the importance of collaboration as a core team competency. Often this competency can seem elusive, even after it’s stressed as a key team operational principle. Here’s a recent example. A team of investors was drawing on its research analysts to support its work. Some of these extended team members collaborated easily with…
I was recently talking to a senior executive of a not-for-profit organization who was expressing frustration over the lack of good performance measures for members of his staff who engage in helping clients fulfill their grant obligations. Some staff members have as few as 15 clients while others have as many as 60 clients. And…
For a change of pace, I’m going to ask you to engage in a short exercise that I learned on the first day of my coaching training at Columbia University. Look at the following list of words, then read them aloud slowly and clearly letting the impact of each word sink in as you proceed:…
We all hear the message: “Don’t think work/life balance, think work/life integration.” This is interpreted to mean that you need to be available 24/7 to do what’s required for work, feathering personal activities between work priorities. At least this has become the expectation. And the possibility of 24/7 connectivity ushered in by the internet and…
Most of our work involves helping leaders and teams develop the soft skills that are critical to great leadership. Sometimes though, poor soft-skill behaviors stem from hard skill weaknesses. Here’s a case in point: Lack of strategic selling experience [list style=”customlist”] ● Background — A while ago, a company we work with regularly had a major…
So often, companies set ambitious goals and leaders work hard to meet them with little success. Why does this happen? The answer is pretty simple, and we all get it: Setting goals disconnected from reality is a prescription for failure. Yet, prominent leaders and companies continue to make this mistake. And it’s pretty understandable. It’s…
After being involved in leadership development programs for decades, we see one clear pattern for success: involve the leaders in co-creating the programs. So often, it’s the leadership development professionals who develop new programs and roll them out. And the larger the company, the more likely this is to happen. After all, don’t deep, sophisticated…
Every month, I talk to companies who lament the mistakes they’ve made by hiring the wrong senior leaders. Amazingly, despite the pain, they usually do not change their hiring practices. So, the pattern continues, poor hires for one of three reasons: [list style=”customlist”] ● Bad behavioral fit ● Bad relationship fit ● Bad motivational…
Since the 2008 recession, budgets for people-related initiatives have been very limited. At the same time, companies have been slow to hire. This means that as economic growth has returned the existing workforce is constantly being asked to do more. We’ve all heard the phrase “forget work/life balance, think work/life integration.” The point is that…
On a recent trip to Florida, I had the chance to observe children at play. They ranged in age from 5 to 12. What struck me immediately was just how congruent their behaviors were with those of leaders we are asked to coach and train: low emotional intelligence, poor listening skills, weak self-control, difficulty collaborating,…