Growth at the Speed of Light
January 13th, 2012 | 02:54pm UTC
Is there anything different about leading an organization that is growing at the speed of light? Earlier this week I had the opportunity to pose this question to a client that has grown from sales of under $7 million in 2005 to over $600 million in 2011. Chris Taylor, CEO of Mission Essential Personnel had an interesting and enthusiastic response.
Without hesitation Chris commented that your c....READ MORE
Don’t look up….look in and around
December 29th, 2011 | 07:31pm UTC
I shared the following short excerpt from Robert Kegan’s book “The Mental Demands of Modern Life” with a client recently. Faced with the reality of another re-organization, the current formal leaders are wondering how they can effectively convince the employees they are being led effectively. I give them credit for having the courage to lead from a perspective of critical questions instead o....READ MORE
Leadership Emergence
December 23rd, 2011 | 05:43pm UTC
Yesterday my 14 year old son and I attended his high school's father-son service initiative at the Capitol Area Food Bank of Washington, DC. Over 100 fathers and sons showed up with their sleevers rolled up to sort and pack pallets of packaged foods for distribution to the areas most needy people. My son and I were happy to help but admittedly we weren't overly enthused about getting up e....READ MORE
Developing Leaders – Words vs. Action
February 15th, 2011 | 02:42pm UTC
“Sudden Leader Loss Leaves Firms in Limbo” – This headline from a recent Wall Street Journal article caught my attention. The article points out that almost one quarter of senior executives surveyed indicated that their firms were not prepared for the loss of key executiv....READ MORE
Coach K – The Learning-Performance Guru!
February 3rd, 2011 | 12:26pm UTC
Admittedly, Coach K is one of my heroes - fellow West Point alumnus and basketball player and the epitome of a Relationship Impact leader! In yesterday's Washington Post Mike Wise described Coach K's unique ability to learn, adapt to change, and perform at the highest levels. In the article one of ....READ MORE
Can consultants really build client capacity?
November 9th, 2010 | 09:26am UTC
Based on the claims made in the brochures of many consulting firms and the promises made in proposal after proposal it would be easy to conclude that consultants excel at building client capacity. However, if you asked clients to grade consultants on their ability to build capacity the scores would be quite low. There are three primary reasons for these poor results.
First, the term client ca....READ MORE
Paradox of Leadership
October 11th, 2010 | 10:02am UTC
I encourage each of you to read this interview with Secretary Robert Gates and also my response to it as well. This paradoxical tension between the idea that a leader is someone who has a unique vision and a unique ability to execute it with the realization that leaders can be wrong and therefore all members must possess the courage to challenge the “transformational leader” is the crux of the....READ MORE
Can curiosity improve performance?
September 24th, 2010 | 01:00am UTC
Absolutely, positively, yes!
It became crystal clear to me at a recent client work session that curiosity most certainly impacts performance. At this work session the team was engaged in an exercise to prioritize a set of influencing behaviors in a 30 minute time frame. The discussion was lively and while the team stuggled a bit they finished the exercise with 3 minutes to spare. Interesti....READ MORE
Sometimes it’s okay to get mad!
September 14th, 2010 | 09:26pm UTC
We recently hired a marketing and sales consulting team to help accelerate our sales efforts and they have been awesome. In fact the experience has been so awesome that I have been moved to anger a number of times during our brief engagement! Just today I found myself extremely frustrated during a three hour call while having a difficult prework assingment challenged. After trying to get my poi....READ MORE
True Leadership
September 9th, 2010 | 10:22am UTC
For the past few years my family has ended the summer with our good friends by attending a play at the Wolf Trap Theatre outside of Washington DC. Last year we saw High School Musical and it was very good. The message that all of the different talents in a community can be explored and celebrated left a very positive impression on my two sons. This year we saw The Sound of Music and I felt compell....READ MORE