When people ask me to describe our change management model at LRI, I tell them it boils down to three principles. Principle number one: Focus on the first five percent. To guarantee a successful outcome you must gather champions, set expectations, how extensively you engage stakeholders, and how well you paint a picture for people…
DetailsRecently, consulting firm Emergent partnered with a Fortune 500 apparel company to undertake the biggest business transformation in the company’s history. Below is a mini case study that provides insights from that project. Building upon its solid performance in 2012, the company chose to implement a new global structure designed to fuel its long-term, international growth. The project…
DetailsTowers Watson recently published their 2011/2012 Change and Communication ROI Study Report. Unlike their four previous reports, which focused solely on communications ROI, in this study they expanded their inquiry to include change management. This study encompassed 604 organizations, six global regions, and more than eight industries, and provided new insight into the role that effective…
DetailsA manager or supervisor’s job should be easier. After all, as long as you have the right people, the right materials, the right information and the right equipment, everything goes smoothly. For most of us this fairy tale scenario only happens on occasion. The rest of the time we are scrambling because one or two…
DetailsWhen I say the word ‘ambitious,’ who is the first person that comes to mind? Is it the political leader who will stop at nothing to win an election? The CEO who aggressively pursues expansion plans, regardless of the economic climate? Maybe it makes you think of your favorite NFL quarterback whose competitiveness kept them…
DetailsThis 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…
DetailsA study a couple of years ago the Center for Creative Leadership asked 158 executives enrolled in their leadership development programs what are the three most critical challenges you currently face? Their responses clustered into 14 categories but the four most frequently mentioned were: Leading across multiple groups (building maintaining and leveraging relationships across all…
DetailsWith our economy in a recession and unemployment at the highest rate it’s been in over 16 years, there is no hiding from the fallout…we’re all feeling it. However, there is a silver lining in this dark cloud we’re all sitting under. There has never been a better time to invest in growing your network…
DetailsGotye’s smash hit, “Somebody That I Used To Know” is everywhere I go. Jacqueline introduced it to me months ago, when its stunning video made it’s way around the web, and I knew it was going to be the song-of-the-year. At this point, you might be getting tired of it, like you did with James…
DetailsSeveral years ago, via Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, I discovered the meaning of social media, including blogging. Be helpful. Not be flashy, noisy, tenacious or controversial – to be successful in social-for-business, you must help people enough to earn their attention (and maybe loyalty). While that sounds easy enough, it’s pretty easy to just…
DetailsRelationship selling is the bedrock for successful selling in the new millennium. However, most salespeople conduct themselves as if they were in a quaint Norman Rockwell painting, building relationships on a smile and a firm handshake, on friendship, on shared mutual interests, common background, charisma, personality and frequency of contact. This quaint, traditional and old…
DetailsWhile most people think of organizational culture in broad, sociological terms, field experience has shown that one of the fundamental building blocks of organizational culture is patterns-of-interaction between small-groups of 2s, 3s, and 4s. Most managers in an organization know that effectively leading a work-group takes an enormous amount of time and energy because they…
DetailsTwo-thirds of all large-scale change initiatives fail to achieve their expected business benefits. This failure rate represents billions of dollars in lost productivity, wasted resources, opportunity costs and rework—not to mention the cost of lost jobs and workforce disengagement. Companies that learn to manage change effectively and consistently deliver expected returns from their large-scale change…
DetailsWe all know that people buy from people they know and people they like. We also know that people send business to people they know and people they like. Having a strong network of people who can help you and who you can help is a valuable asset that many salespeople neglect to develop. One…
DetailsI can’t stand it when a manager, hearing me broach the importance of building trusting relationships with their employees, blurts out the tired old term, touchy-feely. To dismiss the complex role of relationships in fostering sustained high performance is to just not get it as a leader in the 21st century. In a recent posting…
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