Advice and Insights for True Business Leaders

We Expose the Silent Killer of Performance & Growth
that Haunts Virtually Every Business

 

…and reveal exactly how to eliminate it!

 

Leadership & Performance Articles

Performance Management 101: The 3 Primary Keys to Effective Performance Management

I’ve worked with over 35 Fortune 500 companies and a larger number of mid-sized companies over the last 10 years regarding personal performance management (managing and improving the performance of their people). I’ve seen all types of effective, not-so-effective, and down right ineffective approaches to performance management. In this article I’ll share what I've learned to be the basics of effective personal performance management. Other articles will provide...

Leverage Your Superpowers to Have ‘Incredible’ Performance Improvement

With how busy we all are, how much we have to do, and all the additional things we’d like to do – wouldn’t it be nice to have a superpower or two to help get more done? We’ve already figured out that just working harder, or putting in more hours, isn’t going to work. So what to do? Well one answer is to start leveraging your real world superpowers. (Okay, so play along with me for a minute here…it gets good pretty fast.) Real World Superpowers? What do I mean by...

A Business Leader’s Guide to Talent Management Excellence: Foundations

Talent management is an extremely valuable – and very often overlooked – business capability that directly, and significantly, impacts the business performance and financial results of companies of every size. The term talent management has been around for a while now. Unfortunately, for the most part it has been (fairly effectively) hijacked by HR software vendors who use it to describe whatever it is their tool does. Popular, but not accurate.  Nor is it another...

An I.D.E.A. for Working Smarter (and Getting Better)

Some people just know how to get more done. They have the same amount of time in a day as we do. They just know how to better use those 24 hours, those 1,440 minutes, each day. Well we can learn that. We can get more out of life by working smarter. Of course, to work smarter we have to be smarter. Well that's just swell. So how can we do that? Well in his book "Your Best Just Got Better", Jason Womack give us an idea...I mean an I.D.E.A. (which I think is a great...

People Don’t Follow Uncommitted Leaders

Commitment separates Doers from Dreamers. It’s the difference between wishes and goals; plans and actions. And commitment is a key characteristic of influential leaders. It inspires and attracts people. People believe in, and follow, a leader who believes in something important. It’s like the joke about the difference commitment level between the pig and the hen regarding a breakfast of ham & eggs. The pig is committed, but the chicken is just involved. And...

What Were They Thinking…or Were They Really Thinking at All?

We'll talk about 'they', but this applies to 'us' more than we'll admit (at least in public...). I was flying back from Dallas after spending a few days with a new client. While those meetings are always fun and exciting...it had been a long day and I mostly wanted to just settle in as the plane started to back away from the gate. My mind was wandering a bit as the flight attendant moved up next to my right elbow as she started the 'safety instructions'. "To buckle...

The 3 Most Valuable Questions a Leader Must Answer

I love the quote “If you think you’re leading, but no one is following you, you’re just taking a walk.” The key is that to lead you must have influence with others. You need their attention and their willingness to ‘follow’. Well to get people to follow you, there are three questions that all potential followers (be they employees, team members, volunteers, whomever) have in mind, that must be answer in the affirmative for them to allow you to lead them. Because you...

Following an Ineffective Leader

We’ve all been there. We’re stuck working for a doof…I mean an ‘ineffective leader’. Our boss is the king of the dodo birds! The person that constantly makes bad decisions, protects his turf, and takes credit for all of you work. We get so much more done when they’re gone. Well we’re certainly not alone. In fact, Gallup finds that companies fail to choose management candidates with the right talent for the job 82% of the time. So what do you do? While we’d love to...

Obstacles or Opportunities…You Decide!

You desire to achieve big things in your life (and/or become the person you’ve always wanted to be). You want more out of life; a better future. If not, you wouldn’t be investing the time in reading this post. But on a day-to-day basis are you actually doing what you really need to do to make it happen? Or are you focusing most of our energy on the hurdles in your way? I know I wasn't doing what I needed to do. Dixie Gillaspie, in her wonderful book, Just Blow it...

The Single Most Powerful Talent Management Principle

The Pareto Principle, named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, simply states that there is a disproportionate return across a range of activities. There are a ‘vital few’ that produce significantly more value than all the remaining activities. This principle was first identified by Pareto in 1906 when he realized that 80% of the wealth in Switzerland was owned by 20% of the people. Since then this general truth has been observed in many different areas of life...