October 18th, 2011
Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on a wall? Did you ever wonder what they were saying about you? Whether it is a board of directors, the Chief Marketing Officer, or your immediate boss, someone is talking about you and your future. Are you leaving your succession conversations in the hands of others? Just as importantly, what tools or process is the organization using to guide the process? A recent survey by the American Management Association indicated that most organizations still use informal approaches to identify future leaders. What implications does that have on you and your organization?
Four things you should do:
- Be honest with yourself about what it important to you. Declare it to others. What does a meaningful workplace mean to you and those that you mentor? A couple of good references are Neal Chalofsky’s Meaningful Workplaces and Dave Ulrich’s The Why of Work.
- Are you mobile? A former boss of mine told me to remember “everyone is mobile until they ask you to move.” It is ok to challenge the status quo - what does mobility mean in today’s world of work? After all, it is your life we are talking about here.
- Finally, what tools does the organization have in place to guide this process for you? How much time and energy do you have invested in this? If you invest your time here - just like you would with one important presentation, you would be better off. How have you approached it when you were in a job search externally?
- Try getting it down on one page. It is hard to do, but it will make it clear in your own mind. There are many tools out there for your own use.
Are you slipping through the cracks?
 Source: American Management Association Enterprise, 2011
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September 23rd, 2011
USA Today Money Section & Our Thoughts
What a mess! One of the stalwart blue chip companies seems to have lost its way. Leadership and thinking differently about the business is more critical than ever. Where is their leadership bench strength? How did they get into this situation? How will Meg Whitman do? Does she provide a fresh perspective? Only time will tell. A few thoughts for Whitman:
- Reset expectations for internal and external stakeholders
- Declare a turnaround in and focus the thinking and action in 3 key areas –
- Strategy (Where the company needs to play and how they can win) — This includes opening the minds to people inside the organization through the rigor and discipline of assessing what is needed through the eyes of the customer and consumer
- Financials (Cost Out — Capabilities In) — Build a mindset of taking cost out and reinvesting a portion of the savings into organizational capabilities
- Innovation (Building on the Financials) — Functional Excellence in cost and capability for each function in the organization will create a new way of thinking about the organization
If Whitman is quickly about to change the thinking — she will build the leadership bench and not only change, but set the organization up for sustained success.
Click here to read the full USAToday.com article.
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August 15th, 2011
Google / Motorola Deal — Forget technology — it will be the strategic choices around culture that make a difference.
When we teach about strategy in our seminars, we talk about strategy as choices. One of the primary challenges is to get leaders to look at both the “hard” and “soft” choices they must make. The “hard” or “business” focus on elements such as products, technology, market share, customer and consumer, is a given. What is not always a parallel conversation are the “soft” or “cultural” elements, such as behaviors, rituals, engagement, relationships, etc. Although it is part of the conversation, it is often relegated to “implications on people” or “impact on culture” and can easily be reversed. What impact will these cultures have on the products and services of the future of this combined organization? It will be interesting to see how the two organizations will “merge” cultures.
To read the full Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2011/08/15/google-buys-motorola-mobility-for-12-5b-revs-up-patent-portfolio/
Tags: business, choices, culture, primary challenges of strategy, strategy
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July 1st, 2011
How did Facebook think differently about the future? How did MySpace loose its competitive advantage? News Corporation paid $580 Million for MySpace six years ago and sold it this week for $35 Million?
What happened? When asked what doomed the site, a former executive pointed to a litany of potential cause. I find it interesting that they were all internal. A good thinking tool such as a 7C analysis would have helped — a fact-based assessment of changes among — Internal (Company and Colleagues) and External (Competitor, Customers, Consumers, Cater gory , Community) would have led them to determine and think through issues and implications for the future.
Enjoy the read
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/news-corp-sells-myspace-for-35-million/?scp=2&sq=myspace&st=Search
Tags: business news facebook
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May 31st, 2011
N.Y. Times Business Section: What did MySpace not do …? Who was the Consumer?
How did Facebook think differently about the future? How did MySpace loose its competitive advantage? News Corporation paid $580 Million for MySpace six years ago and sold it this week for $35 Million?
What happened? When asked what doomed the site, a former executive pointed to a litany of potential cause. I find it interesting that they were all internal. A good thinking tool such as a 7C analysis would have helped — a fact-based assessment of changes among — Internal (Company and Colleagues) and External (Competitor, Customers, Consumers, Cater gory , Community) would have led them to determine and think through issues and implications for the future.
Enjoy the read
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/news-corp-sells-myspace-for-35-million/?scp=2&sq=myspace&st=Search
Tags: branding EVP, Employee Engagement, Employee Value Proposition, EVP, high value, top talent
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March 16th, 2011
During the economic crisis we saw an uptick in companies investing in focused competency development. One of those was building the leadership muscle in strategic thinking. Our own work supports the findings in this survey. Organizations that build this capability think differently and solve problems faster and more effectively than those who don’t. Most importantly, they are able to change quicker and more deliberately.
These skills are more important than ever for today’s leaders. Strategic Thinking is what organizations value most in leaders. You can review the whole report by clicking on the link below.
Bloomberg Businessweek: Leadership Development
Tags: Leadership, leadership development, strategic thinking, survey
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November 8th, 2010
Disney Junior to Focus on Social Values
This article emphasizes what all leaders should consistently be thinking about — why to differentiate and how to leverage it in your strategy. We stress the importance of working hard to determine a Strategic Competitive Advantage through differentiation. In our facilitation sessions with leadership teams, we like to dig deep on three important questions …
1.)Do you have an internal strength that would be hard to replicate by the competition?
2.)How do you know?
3.)If so, how long can you hold it? If not, how do you put one in place??
How can asking these questions of your organization, your business unit, your function, or your department help you make different strategic choices?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/business/media/05disney.html?_r=2&ref=business
Tags: competition, social values, strategic competitive advantage, strategic shift, strategy
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October 18th, 2010
This is a great read in the NY. Times (see link below) about Apple and culture. What role does culture play in maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage? Building and sustaining a performance culture is critical for speed, flexibility and a true competitive advantage. There are several tools that must be leveraged to build and sustain a high performing culture. Communications, rituals, short-term wins, education, structure, vision and values, polices and procedures all must be aligned and leveraged. All play a critical role. Enjoy the read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/technology/18apple.html?_r=1&ref=business
Tags: apple --strategy and culture
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October 14th, 2010
One of the most important things one can learn as a leader is to listen and let people “be heard.” That should be a guiding principle for all leaders. However, a principle is only as good as a practice that will help make it real. A wonderful practice is conducting Skip-Level Meetings.
Skip-Level Meetings are those that take place with a leader and the people who report directly to his or her staff. You “skip” one level and go directly to the next.
The agenda –whatever is on the minds of the people who attend the meeting!
Several years ago, I was leading a global training function for the Gillette Company. One of my trusted staff members suggested I implement this practice.
The staff agreed (and granted me a lot of trust), and it became an ongoing ritual …often held at lunch time. I believe we ultimately became a better function because of the communication and insights we shared across all levels. It also built even stronger trust between me and my staff.
These meetings never became more important than during the period when
Gillette merged with P&G. During the transition, there were a lot of “unknowns.” Having this structure in place helped during a real time of uncertainty and change. I was able to hear what people were concerned about, what they hoped for, and how they were personally and collective dealing with the change.
I knew this practice had made a difference. As the merger finalized, a decision was made to combine the two training organizations. Several people were losing their jobs. At our final meeting, one of the attendees said, “This is hard, but I feel like we have been kept up to date, listened to, and treated with respect and dignity.”
What else could a leader ask for?
Tags: Employee Value Proposition, leadership engagement
Posted in: Employee Engagement, Leadership & Strategy | No Comments »
October 13th, 2010
A while back we were working with a leadership team – facilitating a strategy session. Since several of the participants were remote, there was a conference call taking place during one of the conversations. On the conference call was a plant manager from a facility in the southeast part of the country. The topic was company culture and values. There was a lot of conversation about employee engagement …really finding out what was going on and making a difference for people in the lower levels of the organization. Executives in the HQ conference room were asking what was needed to make it better so “all” employees opinions and ideas were heard. What were not aware of that could help make a difference n the future of the company. Were employees being honest about what it was like to work there? feeling like they were an important part of the future direction of the company.
The call began to run against the lunch time hour. The president and his staff needed to get off of the call as they were “celebrating” a company anniversary. They were sponsoring an elaborate lunch for the employees in the building. The menu was quite extensive – “surf and turf”
On the other end of the line was dead silence as the plant manger was about to bring about 1/3 of his workforce into a general meeting to announce plant lay-offs.
How do you think the rest of the meeting went?
Do leaders look at the organization through the eyes of the people who work there … The people on the front lines? What allows leaders to become disconnected from the lower levels of the organizations? A great gift to leaders is lost if they do not stay connected to those who are closet to the “work”.
In a culture of disconnected leaders, there is more to protect and less freedom to hear anything new. Leaders have a better chance of getting at the truth if they stay connected.
This is values and culture exists to in the many conversations that take place across an organization –no matter what the size – not in the offices of the top leaders.
Tags: leadership engagement, worklife Balance emplyee engagment
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