“That’s what I do. It’s what I love to do. It’s what I do best.” My wife looked at me, happy that I had started my Thursday morning on such a positive note. She’s used to my exuberance and confirmed my self-assessment: “I make complex things simple that helps others get clear and take smart …
Blog
A few weeks ago I co-hosted a webinar with Sara Ismail-Beigi and Jonathan Thomas Meenach, two students from Bowling Green University’s Masters of Organization Development Program. The first thing we talked about in our planning were our own experiences as both leaders and participants in other webinars. Here’s the short list we developed: There was …
John Kotter wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review reporting that 70% of change efforts fall short of the objectives they were designed to achieve. What explains this sorry state of affairs? Lots of factors make or break change efforts: Support from senior leaders Commitment and engagement of key stakeholders Allocation of needed resources …
Read on to learn about adding another Critical Success Factor to put in place for your change work to work to the list of seven I have described in another article. I got an email last week from my wife. It was one of those notes that’s been forwarded across cyberspace until it finds its way into …
I recently did an interview with Michael Fischer from Lyondell-Basell about important change work that often gets ignored. The short list of to do’s is pretty straightforward: Manage costs. Decrease them wherever possible Protect your share of a shrinking marketplace Conserve cash so that you can weather the financial storm These make sense. But alone, …
I work with senior leaders in companies around the world. They lead organizations from very diverse industries. Some work in the private sector, others in the public. I have consulted with brand new CEO’s and those who have been in their position for a decade or more. They all have four things in common. They are almost …
Leadership is an essential element of any successful change effort. I’ve written elsewhere about the powerful approach to develop leadership in organizations through coaching. So that led me to wonder what can we learn from coaching about how to develop better leaders? I recently read an article on John Wooden in The Los Angeles Times. Within the same few …
The single greatest complaint I hear from people is that communication in their organization is lousy. I recently did a podcast on what to communicate to employees during the economic downturn. This article is about three good ways how to do that. People in them feel like they’re kept in the dark. Tough issues get glassed over. …
There’s lots to learn about how to create fast and lasting change from great sports coaches (see my post on the site about John Wooden’s Radical Leadership Style. I have known Bob Benwick for 15 years. We first worked together on a Real Time Strategic Change effort at a bank where he was the senior HR executive. …
Do you recognize yourself in any of these settings? You’re in a meeting or on a conference call, looking at your watch and wondering when it’s going to end; Your plate is too full, you’re staying late and working weekends…and the list seems to keep getting longer and longer; or… It’s hard to get people …