Do you have high school or university students in your family? Last week I had a discussion with a second-year B.Com (Investment) student, the daughter of a friend. We discussed how to learn.
In the 21st century, we all need to learn continuously. Many of my clients will recognise the principles of learning. I personally use them in trying to master important new material. In the text that follows I only provide a brief outline. read more »
One client was not over the moon about my rather in-depth overview of Henry Mintzberg’s Management (and HM includes leadership under management). Another said my newsletters are too long.
Fortunately I discovered my notes made in 2005 on Jack Welsh’s Eight Rules of Leadership.
Welsh, formerly CEO of General Electric, was named the top manager of the 20th century. read more »
“Success depends on a company’s ability to unleash the initiative, imagination, and passion of employees, and this can only happen if all those folks are connected heart and soul to their work, their company and its mission.” read more »
Some of my clients have read Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I bought a copy in 1993 but only read it in 1999 – and regretted not having done so sooner.
It is with sadness that I learned of his passing this month – which led me to rereading The Seven Habits. Through the years I have read a number of Covey’s books and also valued The 8th Habit.
While The Seven Habits in style is not a classic business book, it covers the domain of leading/managing in an intriguing and thoughtful way. It prompted me to write this post. read more »
Any MD or leader senses that a change in strategy means a change in execution and in behaviour. I have clients who are by now well-versed in leading change and who really relish the execution process especially as they are experiencing success on various levels.
Others who have sailed through usually invigorating strategic planning sessions are still struggling in getting an execution process in place. To them the new processes and new systems which need to be mastered are daunting. They fail to committ themselves step by step.
Every MD knows that execution and changing the behaviour of those you lead are the difficult parts. Google glibly shows that about 15 million articles have been written about the “execution of strategy” and 6.6 million on “leading change”. Save yourself some reading by reading only one checklist on leading change, developed by John P. Kotter, formerly from Harvard University, the preeminent change guru.*1 I abbreviated the content of his eight points to make it even easier.
Do you as MD hold too few meetings and rather depend on sending internal e-mails about important matters to managers and other team members who are in your proximity? Or if you hold meetings, how sensitive are you to the patterns of communication in the room?
Wearable electronic sensors that captured patterns of communication without recording the discussions have provided data worth taking note of. With remarkable consistency, the data showed that the most important predictor of a team’s success was its communication patterns. And these patterns were as significant as all others factors – intelligence, personality, skills, strengths and the substance of discussions – combined.
keywords: effective communication, effective meetings, leadershipAll MDs and their teams try to produce better results. As a consultant I assist them in doing so. Moving to a higher level means change. And change is not easy.
People have a lot of resistance to change. They have entrenched work habits. They have mindsets. A new strategy means learning and doing new things and there is often resistance, for whatever reason, to such learning. read more »
All of us have experienced moments when we are stuck – and often a few times per day. We know what we have to do, but find a good reason for not doing it. We procrastinate. Or come up with an excuse or cop-out.
We have developed fixed mindsets about what we can and can’t do and about many other things. We create some realities which serve as positively, but we also create some which do not serve us.
Often we simply believe we can’t. Is it true? read more »
keywords: build people, change management, learningBusiness leaders everywhere know that success isn’t possible without changing the day-to-day behaviour of people throughout the company. But changing behaviour is hard. (Even when new habits can mean the difference between life and death e.g. adopting healthier day-to-day habits after having undergone coronary bypass surgery, nine out of 10 patients do not manage to follow though.)
However, behavioural change – and business success – has a much likelier chance of occurring if we heed new evidence about change. Breakthroughs in cognitive science about how our brains function contain pointers worth taking serious note of. read more »
Most MD and managers have no idea how little their staff learn during an important coaching session. What to do to ensure more learning and new behaviour?
Most of us know that our listening retention ability is between 7% and 9%.
read more »
