This week, two North Bay organizations deserve a round of applause!Amy's Kitchen opens an on-site health care clinicFirst, congratulations to Amy's kitchen for its innovative approach to employee health care. They recently opened a primary health care clinic at their Santa Rosa production facility.[pullquote]From time to time, we offer a round…
How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other
This phrase is powerful in so many ways.
Smart people can often be prima donnas – I’ve heard those accusations myself … the first part, of course, not the second (and typically disguised in less elegant terms) … but the brilliance of some people is often more blinding than enlightening.
Fortune magazine recently asked Dr. Mehmet Oz about the best leadership advice he had ever received.
As a Chief Resident associated with Columbia University, Dr. Oz’ mentor told him that the hardest part of being a leader was “keeping smart people from killing each other.” (more…)
If the execution of a company’s plans is an avowed priority, critical to the success of both the CEO and the business, why aren’t CEOs spending enough time on it to make it successful?
Why is it that every time the Conference Board surveys CEOs to identify their Top Ten Challenges, “consistent execution of strategy” or “excellence in execution” is invariably cited as being in the top two or three “greatest concerns”?
Yet, when CEOs are asked about their greatest disappointments or failures, they routinely list their company’s inability to execute?
Huh?
How is it that a subject among the top three goals of most CEOs is the very one where the CEO has the least amount of success? Is this simply a conundrum tucked inside a mystery hidden inside an enigma … or can we sort out some of this ambiguity? (more…)
Déjà vu all over again?
How often have you heard that phrase banging against your skull … and how often was it telling you …
“I’ve been here before” …
“Didn’t we already solve this problem?” …
“Why does this subject keep coming up all the time?”
Late last year, I embarked on a retrospective of my first 100 newspaper columns from the last four years. You may recall that I emphasized how often so many of those issues continue to be the same challenges year after year.
They’re constantly resurfacing, often in disguise as a different issue altogether … but really, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
I promised you then that we would attack the litany of reasons that these same issues keep popping up like whack-a-moles. I don’t think we’ve gotten “dumb and dumberer,” so what’s going on? Why are we tackling the same problems over and over again? (more…)
For most of us, this is the time of the year when hope springs eternal.We’re revved up for an exciting new year, determined to change all of the things that didn’t work last year so we can pound the ball out of the park in 2012.
Nothing wrong with any of that. Commitment, momentum, focus … these are the energies that will fuel our engine and help us jumpstart 2012 with the vigor and rigor that we need to make this year the most successful ever.
Yet, like most New Year’s resolutions we’ve made, the “gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight”.
We soon discover that it’s much easier to start than to finish.
We struggle to keep the engine stoked with the same energy that propelled us into the New Year.
We begin to feel some of the air already coming out of the tires, and begin to wonder … “where did that new-found energy go”?
It comes back to that whimpering sound of “hope springs eternal.” (more…)
We’re always sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series.
Do it quickly, don’t look back … and move onRemember how Mom used to say: “You know better than that?”
It wasn’t that we were ignorant or unaware of what was supposed to be done. Quite the contrary. We knew damn well what we were supposed to do but we just didn’t want to do it. Why not?
That’s the eternal conundrum, isn’t it my friends? Why don’t we do what we know we must do? (more…)
What’s missing? Why do we keep wrestling with the same issues that we’ve examined and discussed throughout our careers?
That’s what makes it both fascinating … and painful … to be reminded about our timeless journey and our ongoing struggle to find the right balance to fulfill the lives we envision for ourselves.
I’ve always been intrigued by Shakespeare’s line … not only because of its famous lineage, but because so few know the words that follow and give the phrase its power:
(more…)
What Does It Take to be a Great Leader? Every Tuesday, we're sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember ... you won't BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader ...…
Every Tuesday, we’re sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series and #100 of my newspaper columns.
The magical mystery tour continues with another retrospective about some of the subjects covered in my first 100 columns … seriously? … the “first 100”? (Is that a threat or a promise?)
As I considered my earlier columns, I was struck that none of these issues has really gone away. We’re continually battling the same challenges … occasionally finding temporary resolution or respite, but so often juggling so many of them that we don’t take time to resolve 
any of them. Why are we stuck in that do-loop? That’s a conundrum we’ll attack in a forthcoming column.
These quotes launched a few columns about leadership succession in the wake of the sudden terminations of the Merrill Lynch and Citicorp CEOs as the mortgage portfolios held on Wall Street imploded on the eve of the Great Recession. My focus, however, was more about how these colossal organizations, so dependent upon talented, international leadership teams, did not have a management succession plan in place. (more…)