The pitfalls of a smart executive team

Having the smartest people in the room sounds like a sure bet. How can you fail with all that intelligence and knowledge on your side? Pretty easily, it turns out. The list of major companies that have been routed or rendered irrelevant by smaller, more agile companies is long and well documented. Almost invariably these […]

How collaborative is your leadership team?

Put a group of smart, creative and committed leaders together and you don’t automatically get a high performing, collaborative leadership team. You’ll often get something that looks more like a polite cage fight, with each player jockeying for position, working hard to avoid losing and maximize winning (winning = more authority, recognition, control, territory, headcount, […]

The Tell-Fest

We’ve all been there. A leadership team meeting, board meeting, project team meeting, it could be any meeting in any organization, almost anywhere on the planet.  Sometimes you know its coming and you just wait it out. Other times it sneaks up on you.  Or perhaps you’re the one who starts the party and you […]

Managers – Is Something Missing From Your Job Description?

There may be something missing, but you may not know it. You probably don’t think about it most of the time, but without it you wouldn’t get anything done. You wouldn’t even have your job. Here are some hints… We all do it all the time–with our bosses, our reports, our peers, our customers, our […]

Transforming a Customer Care Organization

The Customer Care organization at this global tech company needed an overhaul. Customer issues took too long to resolve, live support was spotty in some regions, and customer satisfaction wasn’t what it should be. Instead of helping sales, the company’s sales reps saw their customer’s support experience as an impediment to sales. Rather than attempt […]

Five (predictable) reasons change initiatives fail

Organizations must be able to change to stay alive. But most change efforts, no matter how sincerely attempted, fail. Here are five reasons why change fails: 1. Solving the “wrong” problem. “Solutions” only work if they solve the right problem. And identifying the right problem to solve isn’t always as easy as it seems. Even […]

There’s Still Promise

Life would be so much simpler without everyone else around. Just imagine how much less complicated things would be if we didn’t have to deal with anybody else.  Nobody’s schedule to meet; no worrying about how I look, how I’m “doing” or when that promotion/new customer/winning lottery number, etc. might arrive. Say goodbye to office […]