Are people born great leaders or are they formed by their experiences and training? Of course, the answer is both. Some people have an intuitive sense of how to encourage and guide teams that engenders respect and loyalty. These people benefit from learning techniques and tools that further increase … [Read more...]
Reasons to hate and to love strategic planning
I have a love-hate perspective of strategic planning. Let me start with what I hate. Hate #1: The binder on the shelf I hate strategic planning that delivers a binder filled with data that buries the essence of the process. Once on the shelf, no one ever pulls the damn thing off for any … [Read more...]
No emotion, no decision: Building a better understanding of how decision making works
I’ve had my fair share of discrimination when someone questioned my capabilities to run the company because I am a woman, and research shows that women express emotions more frequently than men. However, I recognize that when emotions are high, intellect runs low so I always have to be assertive to … [Read more...]
Culture matters. Even more during crisis.
Sometime after 9/11, the first responders were interviewed about how well all the teams from multiple departments and areas came together for the rescue and the fire. The chief being interviewed pointed to all the training they had done. They had trained on individual events that occurred but never … [Read more...]
80 hours a week
On Friday, I spoke with a woman who was working 80 hours or more per week to meet the expectations of her boss. To be fair, her boss might not realize how much time she is putting in. We discussed how often we assume others know what we are doing and how often they don’t realize what we are doing to … [Read more...]
Facing a not-so-new new reality
When McKenzie published the reading lists of global CEOs, I discovered only one book appeared on multiple lists: four CEOs listed The Seventh Sense by Joshua Cooper Ramo. These guys (yes, all men) are charged with guiding their companies to success in the coming months and years, and four chose this … [Read more...]
Success for the long-term
What does it take for a company to survive and even thrive for more than one or two or five centuries? In The Living Company, Arie de Geus and his colleagues analyzed companies that were older (more than 150 years) and at least as large as their own company, Royal Dutch/Shell, from around the … [Read more...]
Communication, Communication, Communication
While it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “location, location, location”, claiming that communication is to company culture what location is to retail isn’t such a stretch in my mind — see if it makes sense to you. Now when I say communication I don’t just mean an organization communicating … [Read more...]
Telling someone what to do isn’t coaching
You have someone on the team who isn’t doing his fair share. The guy hasn’t been a super star but a good worker most of the time. What do you do? Option 1: Get on his case; tell him to get with the program because there are five other guys waiting to take his place. Option 2: Point out what you’ve … [Read more...]
