Finding ways to get things done more simply is an elusive target for most of us. Forbes magazine recently carried an article in which Ron Ahskenas, a managing partner at Robert H. Schaffer & Associates, a Stamford, Ct. management consulting firm, talked about three key ways to get more done…
The NY Times runs a weekly column entitled the Corner Office, that discusses leadership lessons from CEO’s across a broad spectrum of companies. These interviews usually recall important tenets of successful leadership and serve as a valuable reminder about important lessons and how they should be applied.
This week, Adam Bryant interviewed Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe. Lyne reports that she has learned the importance of being committed to “stepping back to think about the big picture,” a major challenge for most business leaders. A great way to do that is to grab a blank sheet of paper to begin.
I also like her suggestion about “office hours”, an idea she picked up from a colleague who was a former college professor. (more…)
During the last several meetings of the CEO Round Table, we’ve invested a lot of time with leading experts to discuss “Talent Management” issues. Experienced CEO’s understand that building a high performance company centers around the recruiting, retention and performance of talented executives. In building our knowledge and insights into these critical challenges, we’ve improved our recruiting skills, launched goal and performance management initiatives among member companies and learned about the strengths and weaknesses of compensation as a high performance driver.
In my experience, few CEO’s devote the necessary time to Talent Management. (more…)
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, is an insightful guy who recently performed some studies regarding cheating. (You'll need to scroll down to the 3rd article.) What he found suggests that some predisposition toward cheating may come from events that occur just prior the incident. He discusses, for example, one…
Gretchen Morgenson, a NY Times columnist, reports that shareholders are speaking out more than ever as they seek to hold directors accountable. It's a welcome trend, as we know that too many directors are really just cronies of the owners and don't provide the unbiased, independent feedback that's expected of…
One of the common issues I face in working with CEO's and other business leaders is the resistance we all have to making tough decisions. Usually, they're decisions that we have already made but haven't been willing to execute. They're things that we know are right but we fear the…
The NY Times runs a regular feature on Sundays entitled The Corner Office, which summarizes conversations with various CEO's on the topic of Leadership.There is a consistent theme relating to hiring philosophy, feedback experiences and other "lessons learned" in this series of articles.In this week's interview with Deborah Dunsire, M.D.,…
There is no question that the value of unbiased feedback is critical to our success. The first cousin to Accountability, unbiased feedback is rarely a welcome interloper but one that we appreciate as we consider how we might improve the success of our lives. [quote style="boxed"]"Feedback is the breakfast of…
I have written and spoken extensively on the topic of building leadership teams and how those gaps hang like an albatross around the neck of the CEO ... or any leader of an incomplete team. The President of the United States is not immune to this condition and the gaps…