Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast…¹
You’ve just hired Selma as your new controller. She has lunch in the staff room on Day 1 to quickly to get to know her new colleagues. She tells one of them that she’s excited to have found a company that develops and promotes their people. After all, she’s been told that by every leader who interviewed her so she…
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Lead Like a Montessori Teacher
Imagine a workplace where all leaders respect their people, provide clear and consistent expectations, and encourage employees to be independent, intrinsically motivated critical thinkers. Such a workplace would look a lot like a Montessori school in fact. I read this post on the 7 phrases Montessori teachers use because my daughter goes to a Montessori afterschool program. Right away my…
Read MoreHow $12,000 Turned Into $1,200,000
Leadership development is one of the highest levers a company has to improve business performance. There is a 38% probability that increasing leadership effectiveness will translate into higher business performance¹. Few other investments in companies can provide such lift potential. The following true story shows how one VP’s leadership development led directly to $1,200,000 in additional revenue. Soon after we…
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Got Commander’s Intent? A Key to Great Leadership
Ask any CEO if s/he recommends leading their company like a military general. Most would say a resounding “No!’. And yet, a well lead army is like a fine-tuned machine. Most of the companies we work with are not so finely tuned (yet). We don’t like war. We do like great leadership. And we especially like an approach called Commander’s…
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Your (Life) Raft Could Sink You
A traveler was on an epic journey. The kind we have heard about in the writings of antiquity– a hero’s journey of sorts. As he was traveling he encountered a river that was too deep and fast moving to cross without help. The dismayed traveler looked up and down the shore to find a bridge, fallen log, or stones to…
Read MoreLeader: What’s Your Status?
I’m a rookie when it comes to improv theatre. Even as a rookie, though, I have already learned a ton. You might be surprised how much of it translates into how I coach and lead. I’ve written before about how the improvised leader is better than you think. In that post, I was focussed on an improv basic called the…
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Leadership Metrics – Game Changers for Improving Leadership/Business Effectiveness
What gets measured gets managed/done/improved. This business adage has been burned into the psyche of all business people worth their salt. There is a lot of truth to the saying. As business people, we are very comfortable measuring our performance in sales and production. We’re sophisticated enough to measure our return on investment (ROI) on marketing spends. We regularly measure…
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Risking Your Identity to Grow
My colleague Tim Edris and I have the privilege of coaching a senior leadership team through a year-long program called Leader to Leader™ to increase their individual and collective leadership effectiveness. We know empirically that even small increases in overall leadership effectiveness can have a significant positive impact on the business. These Leaders are Willing to Put Their Identity on…
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Just Add Vulnerability
I have a love-hate relationship with math (probably because I am getting worse at it with each passing minute). I do love word formulas, though. They are nice and sticky, as in they are easy to remember and employ. Here’s a favourite formula: Data + Feeling + Impact = Effective Feedback Even my most conflict-averse clients have had success using…
Read MoreThree Cheers for Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge (a well known character in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol–Summary here) was a miserable and miserly business owner who seemingly hated Christmas and people. He’s known for his Bah! Humbug! response to his nephew’s Merry Christmas. My colleague Tim Edris and I are fortunate to not have any true Scrooges in our practice. After all, a real Scrooge would…
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