We recently had an experience that all clients can learn from.
A client prospect called us to inquire about our strategic planning consulting services. We had a very solid conversation about their needs and our experience. The chemistry was good, and the client said they wanted to take advantage of our standing offer for an initial, “no-fee, face-to-face consultation.” Continue reading “Hiring a Consultant? Remember: the Qualification Process is a Two-Way Street!”
Among members of the C-suite, there’s perhaps no more important issue than alignment. After all, this is the group that’s supposed to be steering the course of the enterprise. So just ask yourself how successful they can be in their journey if they don’t agree on the final destination! Continue reading “Strategic Planning – The Importance of Executive Alignment”
In our work as consultants, we often find ourselves assessing the team dynamic among the members of a given executive team. It may be as a prelude to doing leadership development work with the group. Or as part of the front-end assessment to a strategic planning process. Or as context to an executive coaching engagement with the CEO or one of the team members.
No matter what the context, we never fail to probe the group’s decision-making process. Continue reading “Decision-Making Clarity and Intentionality: Critical Pre-requisites for Effective Leadership”
Consider this: There are three kinds of power: position power, knowledge power and presence power. If you’re the CEO or President of your company, or division or group leader in your company, it’s quite possible you have a good bit of all three.
You may not think this is a big deal, but make no mistake, whenever you’re in the room, it is a big deal to everyone else. Continue reading “Leaders! Dialogue — Don’t Just Preside!”
We’ve written elsewhere about just how critical the effectiveness of your system of meetings is to your company’s organizational health and business success. But of course, the building blocks of that system are your individual meetings themselves. Think for a moment of just how much time you spend in meetings. Then multiply that by the numbers of people in your company. Consequently, if you have a culture of sloppy, ineffective meeting practices, your company has a productivity time sink of alarming proportions. Continue reading “Maximize Your Meeting Impact: The Process Check”
“Change has no constituency.”
So famously said Jack Welch, legendary former CEO of General Electric many years ago. And, if you’re trying to bring about significant change in your company – even for the better – you know it’s true. None of us likes change. Continue reading ““The Change Equation”: A Rationale for Effectively Managing Change”
Fact: Executive time is the most valuable and expensive commodity in your company.
So at every turn you need to maximize its investment in whatever you do. But if you’re either developing a comprehensive strategic plan for the very first time or completely refreshing an outdated one, you know what a time sink planning retreats can be for your leadership team. Continue reading “Jump-Start Your Strategic Planning Retreat — With A Briefing Document”
As happens regularly in our line of work, we were recently contacted by an industry journalist to contribute our thinking to an article – this time on the topic of “employee empowerment.” “How do you define it?” she asked. “How important is it to business organizations?” “Does it really matter to employees?” “And what are some examples of empowerment actually working in real companies?” Continue reading “Empowerment: Buzzword or Bedrock?”
Cutting costs by better managing supplier relationships is a familiar theme in procurement these days. Phrases such as “earlier supplier involvement,” “tiered supplier relationships” and enhanced “supplier development” are familiar refrains.
But if you come from a tradition of tough, power-play negotiations, how do you overcome that history and move to a more even-handed, transparent and collaborative relationship with your suppliers? Continue reading “A New Spin on Supplier Development: Don’t Negotiate — Collaborate!”
There’s no doubt that teaming is a fact of life in contemporary business. The complexity and cross-functionality of business life require it. But whether you’re talking about your executive team or project or task teams, you’re dreaming if you think that just declaring a group to be a “team” because they’ve been assembled against a problem or “plugged into” the same “org” chart really makes them a “well-oiled machine.”
So what does make the difference between just a group of people and an effective, efficient, functioning team? Continue reading “A Nine-Point Checklist for Effective Teaming: It Doesn’t Just Happen!”
