Tag: Managers

As you prepare to activate your strategy, remember who helps bring it to life: YOUR PEOPLE. Here are eight steps to help bring your plans to reality together.

Are you thinking about your KPIs in the wrong way? How Fantasy Football can help you reach your goals.

Successful change occurs when you empower a group of people to help lead the change; here are 3 skills everyone needs.

Is your organization achieving growth and change? If you're struggling, consider adopting a life centric strategy. Not sure how? Learn more here.

Culture must be at the forefront of leaders’ minds before, during, and after an M&A. Here are key things to do, as well as to avoid, during this critical time.

Strategy activation isn't simple, but there are proven ways to successfully activate the strategies that drive organizational and cultural change. Do you know them?

When it comes to learning & development one group isn’t getting enough attention, and these folks often have the most impact on the business: managers.

To increase the odds of success, here are three mistakes to avoid when activating your next initiative.

While many strategies fail, the truth is that with some thoughtful planning and time, you too can pave the way for strategy activation success.

Leading organizations that meet people where they are & can adapt to change is hard, but not impossible when leaders have the right mindset.

Assuming positive intent is the single behavior that high-performance teams choose time and again. How’s your intent meter reading?

The way we train our employees needs to change. Are you using mobile devices? Are you embracing microlearning? If not, the time is now.

According to a Harvard study, 85 percent of professional success comes from people skills. Here are five tips to help you find more success!

Being a manager is tougher than ever. Here are six tips to help this indispensable role perform to the best of their abilities.

Innovation and change are paramount to any organization that wants to be a market leader. Here are 9 tips to help leaders make the difficulties of change more palatable, and better yet, lead to success!

Visualization can help take the sting out of change by adding the necessary context that is so often neglected in corporate communication.

Managers must need to know how to lead with Empathy 2.0 if you want to get the best out of your people. Are they ready?

We can't return to the “old” ways of working or leading. Here are three do's and dont's for a post-Covid workplace.

Neither the amount of change being faced in the workplace nor the pace of change is about to let up. Leaders need to work harder to ensure their managers are ready.

Leaders must embrace and help people navigate the obstacles of the middle point of a transformation when new behaviors are being adopted.

DEI training can be a spark for change, but it must be oriented within a larger story and tie to organization-wide efforts.

What’s standing in the way of your organization's strategic success? Believe it or not, it’s your managers. 4 tips to make managers difference makers.

Yes, it is possible for your organization to rise above the current talent-shortage trend and cultivate its next generation of leaders.

Your talent shortage has more to do with you and your organization than it does with the talent you're trying to recruit or retain.

For organizations to create the connections that mitigate unconscious bias, focus on empathy. Here are three actions to take.

We are currently all at risk of cultural tunnel vision. And so we must work harder to establish mutual empathy and stronger connections.

Building change resilience across your business is achievable. Try using "empathy 2.0" to tune in to what matters most to your people during the change at hand.

To build resiliency and lift the fog of change fatigue that is our reality in 2021, we must think differently about how we lead change. Consider these three tips.

How can leaders create engagment despite the tidal wave of chaos casued by the pandemic? Celebrate your teams any chance you get.

Preparing for change? Here are three tips for leaders to mitigate risks and help prepare their people for the road ahead. Change isn't easy, but yes, it is achievable!

When smart and agile leaders lead with vulnerability and heart, they change our relationship with work forever. If the current crisis leads us to a more engaged workforce, that would constitute one positive outcome.

Jim Haudan speaks with Dr. Rick Lofgren, president and CEO of UC Health, and Charlie Piscitello, chief people officer at Acutus Medical, Inc. to get their thoughts as how leaders can best lead during challenging times.

The only way to catalyze and accelerate results is through your people. You need to move fast right now. But you can’t skip steps.

Prior to COVID-19, the broader talent community was already migrating toward blended programs of in-person, virtual, and digital modalities. The current situation has put a spotlight on the need to rethink how organizations come together to develop their capabilities and skills.

The coronavirus has forced many to cancel meetings, conferences, and gatherings that were previously considered essential. Don't go dark, go virtual! Here are our top tips for driving virtual engagement that works.

While welcoming adversity might feel counterintuitive and against how most human brains are wired, the benefits are huge. So the next time you’re facing what you would normally consider an undesirable and unexpected problem, try hugging that thunderstorm of adversity. Odds are, you’re about to see your personal growth skyrocket.

Leaders need to tell stories because facts tell, and stories sell. Stories create connections. I feel like everyone does have a good story to tell; they just always don't know how to organize their facts in a compelling way.

Change requires commitment, focus and a process that gives every single person in the company a connection to the strategy.

The fastest way to change your business is through your managers. Your strategy won’t happen without them - managers can make or break change.

Let’s be honest, managing people is no simple job. In fact it’s one of the most difficult roles to excel in, and there is no single recipe for success – no book, no program, no “silver bullet” that can prepare someone to master the skill-set quickly. Why? Because we are talking about leading human beings … Continue reading “You want great managers? Focus on the fundamentals.”

Thinking of engagement as a means to successful strategic change rather than an end in itself,than investing in engagement becomes vital to performance.

If you want a high-performing organization, the good news is, it's not that difficult to identify those things that really yield high performance.

Most people in their professional careers aspire to be managers. But when that day finally comes, most people are woefully unprepared for the myriad activities that we must be responsible for – including the well-being and development of the team members we are managing. Learning to be a good coach is one of the biggest … Continue reading “Lots to Do When You’re a Manager – Make Your Life Easier”

In April 2011, I completed a 90-day sabbatical with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Chilean Patagonia. Root – just like HBR’s April 2012 article titled “Wilderness Leadership – On the Job” – recognized the value for me becoming a more effective people manager by navigating waterways and mountains with a small team. NOLS’ guiding principles and … Continue reading “Managing People and Results? Self-Care Should be Top Priority”

Research shows that managers are the most important drivers of employee engagement, and that engaged employees create loyal customers. But front-line managers are “the ‘least ready’ workgroup in the company, even less capable than their entry-level employees” (Bersin & Associates).  Without a strong development program, people learn to lead by chance.  And these are the … Continue reading “Front-line Managers – Your Weak Link?”

If you want to make sure your front-line employees are getting what they need, make sure you are focusing on training your managers.

Last week, I talked about the challenge of senior leaders in building “collective intelligence” by owning the whole before their individual piece. When senior leaders are working too much on their individual agenda, they are often not spending enough time owning the whole — they’re not focused enough on the big picture of where the … Continue reading “Owning the Whole Before Your Piece – Part 2”

The real key is each team member must own the whole before their piece: They must sacrifice the area they represent for the overall good of the company.

Despite different organizations and different industries, despite different backgrounds and different tenure, I can always find one common thread in any group of managers. Of the hundreds of managers I’ve had the opportunity to coach this past year, all of them would give anything to have more time. It’s easy to agree that certain skills … Continue reading “A Manager’s Greatest Plight – The Relentless Pursuit of More Time”

Organizations that nurture leadership tirelessly take advantage of learning cycles for people to grow and internalize key contributions.

Managers move metrics, are yours moving them in the right direction? Ensure managers are creating better business performance

Few opportunities for building trust are as profound as a leader’s role in creating a “safe haven” for difficult conversations, decisions, and strategy execution – an environment where people feel it is safe to say what they really think and what they think is best for their organization.  Members of a team often define a … Continue reading “A Leader’s Role in Creating a Safe Haven”

Employees can truly love their organizations only when they are committed to the organization’s vision, understand the strategy and how they contribute

No matter how great your strategy, it can come to a grinding halt if your managers can’t interpret and translate that strategy

I was invited to speak with a networking group of HR managers on the topic of improving employee engagement in their organizations.  I expected to have a conversation about best practices, so I prepared accordingly.  I quickly realized that this group already understood the best practices, but they weren’t effective in launching their initiatives. These … Continue reading “Influencing Up”

Working together as a team means engaging individuals in how their efforts impact their team’s success and how that success contributes to the company's success

When you try to do too much, nothing gets done. Seeing the big picture helps companies understand which business investments are important.

Link people who test, build, manufacture, pilot, serve, and transport the products and services to how it impacts the people using them.

Any investment in helping managers be better employee coaches can have a lasting and significant impact on the success of your business.

Adventures take shape in many forms.  And from adventures there are usually lessons to be learned.  I recently took part in a program offered by the National Outdoor Leadership School, which takes people of all ages on remote wilderness expeditions, teaching technical outdoor skills, leadership, and environmental ethics in some of the world’s wildest and … Continue reading “Survivor: Patagonia”

A couple of weeks ago I was hosting a session for managers here at Root’s Corporate Headquarters in Sylvania, Ohio. We got to a part of the program where we talk about the importance of managers being able to connect their teams to the big picture of the business. And we’re not talking connectivity by … Continue reading “Managers: A lesson from Facebook”

I was speaking at Owens-Corning the other day about the reason for strategies.  Companies create strategies so they can continue to grow.  And to grow companies and the people in them, there are six components: Embrace Reality. In more than 20 years in business consulting, we’ve learned that change and growth can occur naturally if … Continue reading “Six Ways to Lead Change, Build Teams, and Make It Personal”

We recently asked futurist Dr.  James Canton about trends for 2011 in our last issue of The Watercooler, and he suggested some new ways for leaders to lead.  In my opinion, the mentality that leaders and managers need for the near future and beyond is one of “don’t tell – ask.” The manager of the … Continue reading “The “Manager of the Future” – the Future is Now”

While this adage may have worked in Field of Dreams, a recent project helped me learn that it ain’t necessarily so. It also highlighted the role, and importance, of insights in problem-solving. What is an “insight”? An insight is an observation that matters. It’s something that can inform the way you think about a problem … Continue reading “If You Build It, They Will Come”

Our clients often come to us with questions like, “How do we engage our people in our strategy?” or “How do we get people to understand the Big Picture, and where they fit?” or “How do we get our different business groups working together to produce greater results?” Do these questions sound familiar? Creating a … Continue reading “Learning With Game Theory”

Over the past year or so I have heard many clients talk about their increased focus on the service profit chain. While I have heard it described a variety of ways most companies are paying close attention to 3 key links: Engaged Employees Produce Satisfied Customers Resulting in Increased Profits Based on my experience these … Continue reading “Great Managers: Are They The Missing Link?”

How ABC’s Hit Show, Extreme Home Makeover Gave Me Insights to Efficiencies and Strategic Engagement Extreme Home Makeover recently came to our city to film an episode. For those unfamiliar with the program, basically a deserving family is surprised one morning to find the show’s charismatically, hyper host telling them to vacate the house because … Continue reading “Good Morning, Management Family!”

In a previous life I taught beginner martial arts classes for adults, and also-on days when my karma was in particularly bad shape-for preschoolers. Which basically constitutes the two most uncoordinated demographics of people whom a martial arts instructor could ever be asked to train. And instead of keeping you in suspense for the entire … Continue reading “Metaphors: Like a Kick to the Head”

Bolting on new learning solution after new learning solution, year after year without a reality check is far from effective and isn't a true curriculum.