Leader's Beacon | The Leadership Experts » Ian Cook

Are You the Expert, the Doctor, or the Process Guy?

Ian Cook — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:22:27 +0000

In his short, wonderful book, Helping, Edgar Schein presents us, whether we are a professional coach or a manager playing a coaching role, with three ways to respond to a request for coaching/mentoring help (or, for that matter, advice with a problem on the job). We can be: an expert resource who provides information or [...]

Develop Your Leadership Competence Asynchronously

Ian Cook — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:30:52 +0000

It being New Year’s time again, Bill George recently blogged about “Five Resolutions for Aspiring Leaders.” He talked about things you can do to develop yourself, beyond what you do in your direct job: such as finding a mentor, setting up a mastermind type group with other emerging and aspiring leaders,volunteering in the community in [...]

Talent Magnets

Ian Cook — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:30:54 +0000

In my leadership workshops and keynote speeches I sometimes ask the group/audience to think of the best boss and worse boss they’ve ever had, what each did, and what effect it had on you. People come up with all kinds of descriptors and behaviors of both bosses. But one thing emerges about the best boss [...]

Praise their Process Over their Competence

Ian Cook — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:30:53 +0000

The name and work of Carol Dweck keeps coming up in discussions among experts in cognitive development. I wrote a review of her important book, MindSet. In it she talks about two fundamental mindsets in people (and, therefore, of course, in employees): Fixed and Growth. Someone with a Fixed mindset believes they can’t get any [...]

Every Manager a Coach

Ian Cook — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:15 +0000

A recent study reinforces the value of coaching by managers throughout the organization. Here are a few key points it makes: Business results were 21% higher in enterprises where senior leaders very frequently make an effort to coach others. This increased when organizations had a culture that supports coaching and makes managers accountable for engaging [...]

Do We Stop Growing after Schooling?

Ian Cook — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:30:03 +0000

I ran across a recent posting from the Gallup Management Journal that made a point have I never thought about before: “Raised through a childhood in which each new year brought novel opportunities, playing at ever more difficult levels of sports, growing physically, educated in a system of cleanly delineated grades — freshman, sophomore, junior, [...]

Keep in Touch with Your Best Former Employees

Ian Cook — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:30:54 +0000

It’s been a smart idea for years. When good employees leave your organization for greener pastures and the departure is amicable, why not keep in contact? You never know, some may find that that grass isn’t, in fact, greener and that your firm was a pretty good place to work after all. A recent WSJ [...]

Job Squeeze Is Real. Talk about it

Ian Cook — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:19:21 +0000

My alma mater, the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University recently hosted a conference on “The Quality of Jobs.” They looked at how trends in what they call the “intensification” of work, the restructuring of jobs, and classic downsizing have impacted the quality of jobs and the levels of satisfaction employees (who are [...]

What Women Bring to Leadership

Ian Cook — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:30:48 +0000

The BBC’s Katty Kay and ABC’s Claire Shipman co-authored a book a couple of years back called Womenomics. In it they cite, among other things, a number of companies where the presence of women in among top leadership had a positive effect on the firm’s financial success. For example: Accounting firm Ernst & Young’s research [...]

Allow Team Members to Find Their Place

Ian Cook — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:30:35 +0000

Edgar Schein, a titan of the field of organizational development, says in his recent book, Helping, that there are four questions on the minds of new members of any team. While these concerns operate at a subconscious level, nevertheless, any team member must become comfortable with the answers before he or she can relax and [...]

All the World’s a Stage…and Sometimes for Leaders too

Ian Cook — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:30:34 +0000

The most frequently cited quality of exceptional leaders is authenticity/integrity. With the best leaders, what you see is what you get, they walk their talk, and so forth. But situations arise that call upon the leader to fake it. They have to become an actor. They have to temporarily take on a persona different from [...]

One Employee at a Time

Ian Cook — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:30:48 +0000

Back in the 90′s the Royal Bank of Canada had a series of TV commercials touting the theme, “Building a Better Bank, One Customer at a Time.” The message, as I recall, was that RBC treats each customer as a unique individual and strives to win them over, one-at-a-time. I frequently refer to this ad [...]

Want to Collaborate? Choose Your Level

Ian Cook — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:30:37 +0000

We hear so much about collaboration these days. Our work is more complex. The best solutions require input from diverse perspectives. We at Fulcrum Associates have just started working with a fascinating simulation learning event, Friday Night at the ER. In it participants experience the challenge of working in a system where the unit managers [...]

Accelerate Your Growth with a Mastermind Group

Ian Cook — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:30:51 +0000

Bill George, an author whom I have reviewed and whom I respect, has just come out with a new book, True North Groups. This is a more structured version of the classic “mastermind group” which many of my speaker colleagues have formed or joined. This new publication just reminds me to urge you to form [...]

Up Your Self-Awareness to the Next Level

Ian Cook — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:30:34 +0000

I am a fan of the theory and research linking one’s level of adult development to one’s effectiveness as a leader. One of the hallmarks of more highly developed human beings (and bosses too, of course, they being humans and all) is their degree of in-the-moment self-awareness. Let’s look at just three levels of awareness: [...]

What’s Your Ask/Tell Ratio?

Ian Cook — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:00:14 +0000

Do you ask your employees as often as you tell them what to do and what you think? In my experience, most managers don’t, not even close. Elsewhere in my blog (Build Best Bosses) I have offered four reasons why this is so. But if you have no answer to the above question, I invite [...]