Is Attainability on Your Pre-flight Checklist?
Ready For Take Off? Imagine you are a commercial airline pilot responsible for the safe delivery of a plane full of passengers to their scheduled destination. The successful outcome of your flight depends on precise completion of a series of proven, sequential processes. What happens when a sequence is violated? What if you changed the […]
Cutting Edge Leadership from Ancient Greece
The Leader of the Future As a student of leadership effectiveness and influencing skills, a quote from Management Guru Peter Drucker provided inspiration I’m compelled to share with subscribers. The leader of the past knew how to tell. The leader of the future will know how to ask. – Peter Drucker Leading others for faster […]
Pursuit of Greatness and The Law of Process
The Law of Process The Law of Process is a developmental model that applies to every process from learning to tie your shoes to building sustained greatness. Continuous development involves moving through successive quadrants on a continuous progression of growth. In the terms of this model, when we settle for good, we have crossed The […]
Three Disasters. Three Leaders.
When disaster struck New York, Chicago and New Orleans, how did leadership respond? Just two weeks shy of the fourth anniversary of September 11, our country experienced another epic disaster, Hurricane Katrina. Our political leadership was challenged to respond. The contrast in results will be studied for years by political historians. Here are three cases […]
Planning and Execution Lessons from Prisoners
Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. If you haven’t seen it, Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 film adaptation of a Stephen King short story that received seven Oscar nominations. Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a city banker, wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. He is sent to Maine’s […]
Exploring Email Effectiveness
How smart are YOUR Communication Choices? Do you remember that classic United Airlines TV commercial? The one where a company leader announces they have lost one of their oldest customers because they didn’t know us anymore? The CEO’s passionate response to his assembled staff discussed the frustration and ineffectiveness of communicating with faxes, voice mails […]
Lessons From Frogs
Decision Making Insight from Amphibians Allow me to share some valuable insight I’ve gained about the process of decision making and subsequent execution. It comes from an unlikely source: frogs. Before you ignore this seemly unintelligent source, I urge you not to throw the baby out with the swamp water. Open your mind, take a […]
Good is the Enemy of Great
Why is it so easy to settle for good? The title of this briefing, “Good is the Enemy of Great” is the first sentence of Jim Collins’ business best seller, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. The book has provided benchmarks for many of today’s inspired leaders. The author […]
My Way or The Highway
The labor market is more competitive. Will some of your key people choose the highway? That’s An Order! In the military, where discipline is essential, the expression; “that’s an order” is routinely used as a clarifier for urgent requests. What a simple way to manage! “That’s an order” is like pushing a button for instant […]
What Can I Screw Up Today?
No one approaches their work day by asking this question. Yet despite noble intentions, expensive miscues occur every day. Why? OK, perhaps there are some postal workers that might intentionally direct your parcel to Bora Bora. So let’s just consider people with at least a trace of pride in themselves and their profession. In fairness […]