Leader\'s Beacon | @leadersbeacon

For those who haven’t been keeping up on recent business and management books, Daniel Pink came out with an absolutely great book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I mentioned it briefly in a blog post last Fall before it came out. Then, in February, I wrote a book review of it.

Now, here’s a recent interview Dan had with Workforce.com that lays out some of the key points from his full tome. Continue Reading

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• Dealing with resistance: the 4 + 2 method
• The Prospect’s Buying Manifesto: The Great Shakedown
• Using Training to Support Employee Engagement Initiatives: 7 Keys for Success
• The Drive To Bond and How We Screw It Up
• Employee Motivation – 9 Simple Tips for Managers

I was struck by a local news item in The Washington Post on Brian Betts, a model middle school principal, who was found gunned down in his home. While the story obviously includes the murder aspect, I was touched by the leadership angle.

Rising to a challenge: Here was a white man who took over a school that was struggling, in a lower income community that is predominantly African America and Hispanic. Furthermore, he talked openly with parents and students about it. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Great Leaders Grow Deep Roots: The Six Characteristics of Exceptional Leaders
• How to achieve top motivation – a case study
• Stimulate Creative Flow By Recognizing Success
• Dealing with resistance: the 4 + 2 method
• The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers Into Great Leaders

There is no question about it. A team can be a powerful vehicle for accomplishing a major project, guiding a unit to superior performance, or bringing together diverse perspectives to solve a pressing problem.

Have you ever been a member of a smooth functioning, high performing team? Those of you who have, no doubt, harbor fond memories of how energizing it is and how great that rush of pride feels when you achieve great things together. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Fear Sells So Sell Fear
• Terms of Engagement… To Get Trust You Must First Extend It
• The Other Way: Beyond Technology to Leverage Your Investment in Your People
• Everybody and Nobody…The Decision Maker
• Using Training to Support Employee Engagement Initiatives: 7 Keys for Success

Wherever you look, news about the economy is bad.

Layoffs abound. Pfizer, a pharmaceutical giant, recently announced 8,000 job cuts. Home Depot, the biggest home improvement retailer in the U.S., said it will eliminate 7,000 jobs. Even the State of California is letting 20,000 go. The economy lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most since 1945, and it shows no signs of improving in 2009. Continue Reading

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“I never get to the truly managerial parts of my own job.”
“I’m staying too late at night and working too many weekends.”
“________is really ready to advance but I have no job to promote him/her to right now.”
“If I don’t give my best people some new challenges soon, I may lose them.”

Sound familiar? Is this what you find yourself saying (or thinking) these days? You’ve tried all the time management techniques. You’ve even upgraded your solfware and tried (unsuccessfully) to re-negotiate your job objectives with your boss. And you have some talented people that are demotivated by doing the same duties month-after-month. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Remove the Doubt and Make the Sale
• Assessing Team Communication
• The Other Way: Beyond Technology to Leverage Your Investment in Your People
• Everybody and Nobody…The Decision Maker
• Four Drive Model: New Theory on Employee Motivation

“Our people are the key to our success?” How so very often we have heard executives mouth these words. But then, how very often we have also heard their people mutter words such as, “Oh yeah, well, if we really are the key, how come they don’t… ” Of course, it is true. In this increasingly competitive, knowledge-based and customer-driven economy your people are absolutely vital to how your enterprise performs. After all, pretty well everything that is done in your organization is done between and through people. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Everybody and Nobody…The Decision Maker
• Fear Sells So Sell Fear
• What to Do When Your Team Gets “Stuck”: 7 Ways to Get It Moving Again
• Delegation: The Forgotten Management Tool
• Terms of Engagement… To Get Trust You Must First Extend It

It is mid afternoon. You are sitting at your desk trying to pull together this important proposal for your boss. It is due the day after tomorrow. As you wrestle with how to incorporate a complex spreadsheet from the finance department, you wonder when your quality analyst will bring in those last two key pieces of production information. Then there is still your own summary piece to write. But what will you write? The recommendations just aren’t coming from your brain. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Dealing with resistance: the 4 + 2 method
• Want Greater ROI From Your Meetings?: Six Questions That Will Make The Difference
• What’s Your Current Edge for Development?
• Ouch! It Hurts To Think This Much!: (Communicating Performance Targets)

We’ve all lived this before. Sally, the manager, asks her employee Gary to prepare a market analysis report for next week. Gary moans and says he doesn’t think he can do it by then . . . too much work and, besides, why not give it to Sherry who has a marketing background. The manager detects the “I don’t wanna” whine and feels the heavy inertia of Gary’s heels digging in. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• You Gotta Get’em to Wanna: 6 Roles the Modern Leader Plays
• How to achieve top motivation – a case study
• Stimulate Creative Flow By Recognizing Success
• I Haven’t Blogged About Dan Pink Lately
• True Leaders Leave a Huge Hole

by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, & Marty Linsky
Harvard Business Press, 2009
ISBN #978-1-4421-0576-4

Reviewed by Ian Cook

Dealing with change and problem solving–these tasks are at the core of what leader/managers do. But there are two distinctly different types of challenges that precipitate change and bring on problems for managers. The authors of this enlightening book lay these out right at the beginning: Continue Reading

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So, you want to be a success? And you want those who work for you to succeed? Then you might as well know the (bad ?) news. Successful, effective people are courageous people!

Aristotle said courage is the primary human virtue. And the ultimate courage is to accept what philosopher Peter Koestenbaum calls life’s “dirty little secret”—that we are all free to choose. We are all free to decide what we desire, how we act, how we feel and who we are. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Giving Difficult Feedback: 5 Steps to Telling Inconvenient Truths
• Ouch! It Hurts To Think This Much!: (Communicating Performance Targets)
• Leadershift Leading Others The Way They Like To Be Led

by Kevin Cashman
Berrett-Koehler, 2008
ISBN #978-1-57675-599-0

Reviewed by Ian Cook

At the point our body and our senses (eyes, ears, touch, etc.) meet the world lies a crossroads. At this very point we experience a constant, two-way flow from the…

1. Outside in–situations, actions and events in their environment
2. Inside out–how we feel, interpret, process these situations and decide on our response Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work
• The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers Into Great Leaders
• Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time
• Net-worth-ing: The Secret to Becoming an Effective Networker

by Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones
Harvard Business School Press, 2006
ISBN #1-57851-971-3

Reviewed by Ian Cook

People want to be led by a person, the authors contend, not by someone with a fancy job title or a manager who has amassed a vast chunk of organizational turf. Employees will choose to follow only a real, live, breathing human being who reveals at least some of their humanity, values, personality and, yes, vulnerability. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Stimulate Creative Flow By Recognizing Success
• Influencer: The Power To Change Anything
• Using Training to Support Employee Engagement Initiatives: 7 Keys for Success
• True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership

by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan & Gareth Jones
McGraw-Hill, 2008
ISBN #978-0-07-148499-2

Reviewed by Ian Cook

If you are like me, and like most of the managers we all know, you have a default strategy for influencing people around you. You TELL them what they should do! You SHARE your wisdom and advice, often drawn from experience in similar situations. Your SUGGESTIONS are frequently spot on and brilliant. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?: What It Takes To Be An Authentic Leader

Is your upcoming meeting a strategic planning session? A sales or project launch? A departmental communications day? Or, perhaps, teambuilding for an intact management or project team? Whichever it is, it undoubtedly involves a significant investment. Continue Reading

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