Leader's Beacon

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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: [...]

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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 [...]

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This has been a hotly debated issue among those of us who work in the so-called “soft skills” area. Our clients, understandably so, want a high degree of certainty that their investment in training will generate certain outcomes. In particular, that their trainees will learn and successfully apply the skills taught. And they would prefer [...]

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A boss of mine early on in my career had a tough, almost bulldog, style. He was a pragmatic, no nonsense guy. He didn’t have a wide vocabulary and didn’t spend a lot of time talking about concepts. He was super loyal to the company and even more so to the branch of which he [...]

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Actors on stage and screen are not genuine. They are fakes. They are playing a part, not themselves. Of course, we expect them to do this and, furthermore, we expect them to do it really well, to convince us that they are the character they are playing. But what about a managers who has to [...]

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I recently attended a presentation by Shannon Deegan, Google’s Director of People. Now, a lot has been written about this company and how it is up there in the stratosphere of “best places to work,” as decreed by Fortune magazine and others. Not surprisingly, Google received around 2 million resumés last year and filled 5000 [...]

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For at least 40 years we have had the idea of “lattice” organization as an alternative design to the traditional hierarchy which assumes employees all want to climb up the ladder. In lattice organizations (and, beyond W.L. Gore & Associates, there weren’t many of them out there back then), you could go in any direction–up, [...]

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Gary Ridge, CEO of the highly successful company, WD-40 (the lubrication folks) believes that everyone in his firm should get an ‘A’ in goal achievement. Their performance management process reflects this emphasis… We also recommend . . .Improving Productivity and Employee Engagement through Effective Front Line LeadershipEvery Manager a CoachAll the World’s a Stage…and Sometimes [...]

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Busy, busy, busy. Rush, rush, rush. Meet with team–call shipping–update spread sheet–check emails–meet with boss–finalize report–make two more calls–work on client presentation–attend strategy update meeting–write up the minutes–analyze production data–read market trend report–and on and on and on. If you are right now saying to yourself this “this is my life,” you’re not alone. But [...]

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Richard Florida is a provocative thinker around social and economic issues. He first became noticed from his book, The Rise of the Creative Class. In his latest book, The Great Reset, he shares data that the future growth of jobs will be in two areas: (1) knowledge, professional and creative jobs and (2) lower paying, [...]

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In PwC Saratoga’s latest Global CEO Survey, 65% of CEO’s report that they intend to use more non-financial rewards to motivate their staff. This is an admission that the a motivation strategy full of mostly financial reward “carrots” is not enough, especially for their highly skilled and high potential employees. We also recommend . . [...]

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I actually came across this article from Forbes.com in 2009 but never got around to sharing it. The piece tells about Douglas Conant, the new CEO of Campbell Soup Company, who came on board in 2001 and over the next eight years grew EPS by 5-10% every year. We also recommend . . .Bringing It [...]

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