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Yearly Archives: 2014

HomeYearly Archives: 2014

Yearly Archives: 2014

The Business Benefits Of Leadership Development

The Business Benefits Of Leadership Development

In today’s business world of ever increasing change, it is always easier to justify focusing on the immediate needs of the bottom line or latest crisis; and pay less attention to the underlying issues that ultimately drive long-term success.   One of top underlying issues for most organizations is leadership development.   Companies that develop effective and adaptable leaders are those that stay ahead of the change curve, learn to adapt and consequently grow and prosper. Are today’s employers confident that they are producing managers and leaders they need for the future? According to a Harvard Business Publishing Survey of Global Executives in September, 2013: “leaders lack the skills to achieve strategic goals, and the need to develop stronger leadership capability extends to middle managers, who are being asked to do more than ever before.”  Only 32% of the 800+ respondents believe that their organizations have the right leadership talent and skills to achieve their organizations’ strategic goals, according to the survey results There is little doubt that today’s management believe in principal that there is a clear connection between the quality of an organization’s leadership practices, and subsequent intentions by employees to stay with an organization, perform at a high level, and apply discretionary effort.  Let’s take a look at what Leadership Skills and Development Practices are needed in today’s business environment. Leadership Skills to Have and to Develop: Commitment, Resolve and Perseverance – driving every aspect of the organization towards a singular unified purpose. Risk Taking – breaking conventions and…
August 23, 2014 Leadership Development, Management Consulting

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Be a Better Meeting Facilitator

Be a Better Meeting Facilitator

We all spend more time in meetings than we would prefer to and for most of us they are energy depleting and at best moderately productive. Here are 3 simple suggestions that might improve the quality of the meetings you facilitate.1. Give Each Agenda Item an ObjectiveEssentially what are we trying to accomplish with each agenda item? The objective for each agenda item can be provided by the meeting owner or the person who asked to have a particular item on the agenda. To get a bit granular for the moment we would even propose that the Objective for each agenda item be printed right next to it. This gives people a visual reminder of what they need to focus on and what they're here to get done.There are generally 4-5 Objectives for typical agenda items in a business meeting:Make decisions Share information Advance the thinking on a specific issue Create buy-in Obtain inputWhen meeting facilitators have implemented this technique we have observed a much more focused discussion with a clearer sense of purpose.2. Bypass the Two-Person MeetingThe most prominent thing we see in meetings today is two people going one on one with each other while others sit outside of this process and observe. Sometimes it is a healthy discussion, in most cases it a debate driven by a healthy dose of egos. More often than not it includes the meeting facilitator and someone else. Getting drawn into this kind of…
July 18, 2014 Team Building

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A More Effective Way to Look at Succession Planning

A More Effective Way to Look at Succession Planning

Time marches on, and with it go corporate leaders. Everybody retires at one time or another, and to maintain solvency in the leadership ranks, companies must know in advance how they’re going to deal with these departures. The traditional way of addressing this is with succession planning.It’s important to have a plan in place to make the changing of the guard for executive management positions smooth and uncontroversial. The plan itself, however, is not as important as what the plan mandates: development of personnel who are ready, willing and able to assume top spots such as chief executive, chief of operations, chief financial officer, chief technology officer and others. Succession planning – or succession development? A lot of companies are big on planning but not so great on development. Where succession planning is concerned, this is often simply a problem with how the process is viewed. Planning is a system with so many aspects, it can seem to go on forever and grow to the point where nobody really understands the plan anymore. Development is quite different.If you think “succession development,” then you’ll be starting out on the track that will lead you to the results you want. Common sense tells you that in leadership succession, the goal is to prepare future leaders, not to plan. You already know what’s going to happen – new leaders will replace retiring leaders or those who leave for other reasons. The key is to make the “plan” simple and concise while focusing the majority…
June 9, 2014 Executive Coaching

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New Website Launch

New Website Launch

Today is the official launch of our new website and we are excited to share it with all of you.We are also beginning our 15th year of business here in the Bay Area.Our passion and vitality for our work seem stronger than ever. Much of this has to do with our continuous learning during the last 18 months.First we engaged with Phil Sandahl and his staff at Team Coaching International (TCI), where we went through their unique team coaching certification. TCI's team assessments are the best in the business and gives us and the teams we work with an immediate and incisive look at how teams see themselves and how their stakeholders see them as well. This output has translated to us helping teams get immediate traction and acceleration in moving toward their goals. Please check out these tools on our Team Assessments page.Next we got involved with Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser authors of The Versatile Leader and the accompanying 360 survey called the Leadership Versatility Index (LVI). In all the years that we've been doing leadership and executive coaching nothing has impacted our thinking and approach to coaching more than this concept of leadership versatility. No longer do we think in terms of deficits or focusing only on strengths, but rather building versatility into a leader's repertoire of leadership behaviors. If you're interested in reading more about this concept please go to our Coaching Philosophy page on the website to download several articles.We then became certified in the Birkman…
June 2, 2014 Executive Coaching

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What to Expect from an Executive Coach

What to Expect from an Executive Coach

A rising athlete relies on a good coach to provide the insight and direction that lead to greater skills. In the same way, smart business leaders tap into the proven expertise of executive coaches to help them develop the leadership and personal power needed to rise to the top of their fields. What’s it like to work with an executive coach? Why are these coaches so beneficial?Most of us have watched sports coaches in action. In nearly every case, we know that the coach’s athlete or team is much better at the sport than the coach. Think John Madden, Tommy Lasorda, Phil Jackson. None of these epic coaches could possibly match up against their world-class players. So what good are they?The answer is simple: They have specific knowledge about the game that the players don’t have, and they can see things the players can’t. This is exactly why an executive coach is so valuable to the career paths of individuals in leadership roles who wish to grow at a rate that would be impossible on their own. Let’s take a look at some of the elements of a well-rounded executive coaching program. Time frame and objective Unlike with athlete coaching, which can last an entire career, executive coaching programs usually last for nine months to a year. If the coaches are seasoned high-performers, this is sufficient time for the executive client to learn necessary skills, un-learn bad habits and embed the new knowledge through practice and analysis. Coaching or training programs…
May 31, 2014 Executive Coaching

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Best Practices: Enhancing the Manager/Direct Report Relationship

Best Practices: Enhancing the Manager/Direct Report Relationship

We have noticed a trending in the last 5 years between managers and their direct reports that concerns us a great deal. Managers have become less accessible, conduct fewer staff meetings, schedule infrequent one-on-ones and communicate downward less and less. We believe this growing trend is being driven by three particular things: managers being asked to manage and be individual contributors, more matrixed organizations that require significant cross functional collaboration and thus a greater time allotment and managers not being acknowledged or rewarded enough for developing their people. This is not an attempt to bash managers but rather an explanation for what has distracted them away from best practices for the manager/direct report relationship. Managers are literally in the middle between the demands being placed on them by their leaders and the responsibility of managing a team. So what outcomes do we see due to this dilemma? In our executive coaching and team development work we see less “bench strength” being developed in organizations, fewer career path discussions taking place and diminishing morale as people begin to feel more like worker bees than employees who are making a contribution that has an impact on the organization.  The only way managers can get back to enhancing their relationships with their team members is too make a greater commitment to making development a priority. Carve out the time on your calendar and don’t cancel time with your people/ team unless the building is burning down or you have a million dollar deal…
May 30, 2014 Executive Coaching, Management Consulting

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What Is Leadership Versatility

What Is Leadership Versatility?

In our earlier post we mentioned our work with Kaplan and Kaiser the authors of the book The Versatile Leader. Today we would like to open up for discussion the concept of leadership versatility.From our perspective leadership versatility is the capability to flex as needed on a pair of opposing leadership virtues. We work with leaders to aspire to versatility in a two-sided sense. For example being direct and respectful of people's feelings or if you are a team leader who doesn't hesitate to provide direction can you remember to perform the complementary function of asking for other's input?All of us over time develop a bias and hence a preferred behavior or mindset that would impact the examples above. We tend to then either over-use and/or under-utilize those leadership behaviors. This translates to leaders getting out of balance and in some cases "lopsided". "Lopsidedness" occurs when a leader combines extreme over-use of one strength in combination with the complete disregard for it's leadership opposite. The classic example is someone who is very strategic/visionary and on the flip side pays no attention to how their vision will get operationalized. In a very real sense the dominant preference crowds out the weaker side.So here is an exercise to try on right now. Think about your very preferred ways of leading...a list of one word adjectives. Follow that up with identifying the complementary opposite of each of those preferred behaviors. Take note of how long/hard it is for you to come up with the…
February 22, 2014 Leadership Development, Management Consulting

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