The US and Canadian armies (among others, I’m sure) are famous for its post-event after action review (AAR). Whether it’s a mission,  a tactical maneuver, or just a patrol, the individuals involved meet immediately afterward to debrief on how it went and what they can learn for the next time. This goal is to quickly […]

I can’t stand it when a manager, hearing me broach the importance of building trusting relationships with their employees, blurts out the tired old term, touchy-feely. To dismiss the complex role of relationships in fostering sustained high performance is to just not get it as a leader in the 21st century. In a recent posting on […]

Consider the following two versions of feedback given by a boss, in response to an employee leaving errors in an important report for the Board: “I’ve gone over your report and found you didn’t include the sidebar paragraph that explains Figure 6 on page 18. Please add it in right away and get the revised […]

A study a couple of years ago the Center for Creative Leadership asked 158 executives enrolled in their leadership development programs what are the three most critical challenges you currently face? Their responses clustered into 14 categories but the four most frequently mentioned were: Leading across multiple groups (building maintaining and leveraging relationships across all […]

If you haven’t yet run across TED Talks, I heartily recommend you check them out. “TED” stands for technology, entertainment & design. The organization began way back in 1984 and calls itself “a nonprofit devoted to ideas worth spreading.” It holds two main conferences each spring, plus a global conference in the summer, and licenses […]

This post was triggered by a great post in the HBR Blog Network by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman. This essence of their article is that most of the behaviors of so called “bad bosses” are, in their words, sins of omission, not commission. In other words, it’s more what the boss fails to do […]

The trend these days is clearly for managers to take on more of a coaching role. But they still need to be the manager! These are two different roles. As a manager, you have stewardship for results in your area of operation. You ensure that your people are performing at an acceptable level and are […]

I don’t know about you but it pains me to see so many people in organizations not contributing near to what they are capable of. Many of course, for any multitude of reasons, just don’t want to, thank you very much. They are satisfied with average, with just enough. That’s a topic for another time. […]

I was working with a coaching client recently, “unpacking” the results of his Leadership Circle Profile (360˚ feedback assessment). While his profile was very positive–he is doing well as a leader–I was struck that on several less desirable factors (e.g. Passive, Critical, Arrogance) he scored himself high while his employees saw him as low, not […]

We are hearing so often these days that there are tons of well-paying jobs for which companies simply can’t find qualified people. Of course, skilling up alone won’t solve the unemployment and underemployment problems we face. But we do need to skill up as an adult population. I think we all have a part to […]

Research reported by Alex Pentland in the April issue of Harvard Business Review has revealed some interesting new information on effective teams. He and his group deployed “sociometric badges” in teams in 21 organizations. These devices are able to monitor on individual team members’ tone of voice, body language, frequency of initiating and responding, plus […]

There is enough research on Employee Engagement to show that engaged employees give more “discretionary effort” (going above and beyond job expectations…without being told/asked) to their employer. Yet levels of engagement have not changed over the last ten years or so, through a period first of  boom, then of bust. Consider this data from the […]

Recently I heard a presentation by Jim Gibbons, President & CEO of Goodwill Industries. In it he said that “every job matters.” Every job has someone relying on the incumbent of the position to do their job well so that the other person can either: benefit or do their own job well. Your client/customer is […]

I get some great ideas from my clients. In a recent coaching conversation my client and I were strategizing about how to fire up an employee in his 60′s with about two years left before retirement who was slacking off.. I suggested he challenge the individual to make the choice to make his last two […]

A manager I was coaching recently explained (away) the behavior of one of his supervisors: “He isn’t an angry person. He means well. It’s just that he’s often sharp with people. And sometimes they take it the wrong way. He’s really a good worker. I’ve told him that people can be intimidated by him, so […]

At the core of The Leadership Circle (360 degree assessment) model are the Reactive tendencies and Creative competencies. If you look at the circle itself, you will see Reactive structure of mind represented by the lower half of the circle and Creative structure by the upper half. When leaders operate from the Reactive mind-set they are, […]

I continue to be amazed by that fundamental truth about living: how we choose to see a situation dictates the choices we–and others–make about it. Take a look at this 2-minute clip that demonstrates it better than any more words I can write. You will be glad you did. How you choose to deliver feedback […]

In his short, wonderful book, Helping, Edgar Schein presents us, whether we are a professional  coach or a manager playing a coaching role, with three ways to respond to a request for coaching/mentoring help (or, for that matter, advice with a problem on the job). We can be: an expert resource who provides information or […]

It being New Year’s time again, Bill George recently blogged about “Five Resolutions for Aspiring Leaders.” He talked about things you can do to develop yourself, beyond what you do in your direct job: such as finding a mentor, setting up a mastermind type group with other emerging and aspiring leaders,volunteering in the community in […]

In my leadership workshops and keynote speeches I sometimes ask the group/audience to think of the best boss and worse boss they’ve ever had, what each did, and what effect it had on you. People come up with all kinds of descriptors and behaviors of both bosses. But one thing emerges about the best boss […]

The name and work of Carol Dweck keeps coming up in discussions among experts in cognitive development. I wrote a review of  her important book, MindSet. In it she talks about two fundamental mindsets in people (and, therefore, of course, in employees): Fixed and Growth. Someone with a Fixed mindset believes they can’t get any […]

A recent study reinforces the value of coaching by managers throughout the organization. Here are a few key points it makes: Business results were 21% higher in enterprises where senior leaders very frequently make an effort to coach others. This increased when organizations had a culture that supports coaching and makes managers accountable for engaging […]

I ran across a recent posting from the Gallup Management Journal that made a point have I never thought about before: “Raised through a childhood in which each new year brought novel opportunities, playing at ever more difficult levels of sports, growing physically, educated in a system of cleanly delineated grades — freshman, sophomore, junior, […]

It’s been a smart idea for years. When good employees leave your organization for greener pastures and the departure is amicable, why not keep in contact? You never know, some may find that that grass isn’t, in fact, greener and that your firm was a pretty good place to work after all. A recent WSJ […]

My alma mater, the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University recently hosted a conference on “The Quality of Jobs.” They looked at how trends in what they call the “intensification” of work, the restructuring of jobs, and classic downsizing have impacted the quality of jobs and the levels of satisfaction employees (who are […]

The BBC’s Katty Kay and ABC’s Claire Shipman co-authored a book a couple of years back called Womenomics. In it they cite, among other things, a number of companies where the presence of women in among top leadership had a positive effect on the firm’s financial success. For example: Accounting firm Ernst & Young’s research […]

Edgar Schein, a titan of the field of organizational development, says in his recent book, Helping, that there are four questions on the minds of new members of any team. While these concerns operate at a subconscious level, nevertheless, any team member must become comfortable with the answers before he or she can relax and […]

The most frequently cited quality of exceptional leaders is authenticity/integrity. With the best leaders, what you see is what you get, they walk their talk, and so forth. But situations arise that call upon the leader to fake it. They have to become an actor. They have to temporarily take on a persona different from […]

Back in the 90′s the Royal Bank of Canada had a series of TV commercials touting the theme, “Building a Better Bank, One Customer at a Time.” The message, as I recall, was that RBC treats each customer as a unique individual and strives to win them over, one-at-a-time. I frequently refer to this ad […]

We hear so much about collaboration these days. Our work is more complex. The best solutions require input from diverse perspectives. We at Fulcrum Associates have just started working with a fascinating simulation learning event, Friday Night at the ER. In it participants experience the challenge of working in a system where the unit managers […]

Bill George, an author whom I have reviewed and whom I respect, has just come out with a new book, True North Groups. This is a more structured version of the classic “mastermind group” which many of my speaker colleagues have formed or joined. This new publication just reminds me to urge you to form […]

I am a fan of the theory and research linking one’s level of adult development to one’s effectiveness as a leader. One of the hallmarks of more highly developed human beings (and bosses too, of course, they being humans and all) is their degree of in-the-moment self-awareness. Let’s look at just three levels of awareness: […]

Do you ask your employees as often as you tell them what to do and what you think? In my experience, most managers don’t, not even close. Elsewhere in this blog I have offered four reasons why this is so. But if you have no answer to the above question, I invite you to spend […]

This week’s post is from the pen of my colleague, Liz Weber, CMC. Liz specializes working with leadership teams on strategic and succession planning. She shares her wisdom and expertise as a consultant, trainer, and keynote speaker. Her website is well worth a visit. Good managers run efficient organizations. Great managers develop solid teams of […]

This has been a hotly debated issue among those of us who work in the so-called “soft skills” area. Our clients, understandably so, want a high degree of certainty that their investment in training will generate certain outcomes. In particular, that their trainees will learn and successfully apply the skills taught. And they would prefer […]

A boss of mine early on in my career had a tough, almost bulldog, style. He was a pragmatic, no nonsense guy. He didn’t have a wide vocabulary and didn’t spend a lot of time talking about concepts. He was super loyal to the company and even more so to the branch of which he […]