Many Managers Disempower Themselves
Too often managers don't recognize the extent of their own Victimitis. They aspire to lead but end up demoralizing their own teams and frustrate themselves by choosing to be disempowered by their boss...
View ArticleMastering Change Through Continuous Growth Learning And Improvement
To master or thrive on change, we need to embrace perpetual growth and development, continuous learning, and constant improvement. That's the stuff true change leadership is made of. The surface issue...
View ArticleMeasurement And Feedback Are Vital to Improvement
High performers actively seek feedback. They know that's the only way to change their course and improve their performance. Good feedback and measurement identifies the "here" that goes with vision's...
View ArticleMeasurement Traps
Measuring employee or organizational performance can cut both ways. It can play a valuable role in improving organizations - or it can stand in the way of necessary change.
View ArticleMeasuring Organizational And Team Energy Levels
We designed the "Energy Index" to help leaders dig deeper and uncover the root causes of why people they are trying to lead may not be mobilized and feel energized. The Index also points to areas that...
View ArticleMight is No Longer Right
Richard Boyatzis, one of the founders of competency theory and a professor at Case Western Reserve University reports, "From my research I'm left with the impression that half of the managers in...
View ArticleMorale Problem? Look in The Mirror
Many Canadian organizations are experiencing deep and debilitating morale crises, just as they're trying to cope with a challenging business climate.
View ArticleMore Change Demands More Leadership
Within the workplace, a leader typically has a clear mental picture of what success looks like for a particular project or, more generally, for a successful team or the organization as a whole. He or...
View ArticleMore is Said Than Done About Improving Customer Service
Effective teams, organizations, and leaders exist to serve others. And those who provide the highest levels of service/quality enjoy the richest rewards. That's not just some platitude or warm and...
View ArticleMoving Out of a Career Rut
Brian's head was starting to throb as he scrolled through the two dozen new voice and e-mails messages on his Blackberry while walking to his cubicle. Looks like another crazy day in the hamster cage...
View ArticleMy Approach to Personal Time Management And Organization
Self-management, like self-improvement is highly personal. What works for one person may be ridiculous to someone else. Over the years I've evolved a personal management system that works for me.
View ArticleOrganization Structure Limits or Liberates High Performance
The CEO of a national retailer was very frustrated. His face grew noticeably redder as he told me how he had set up each store as a profit center and was attempting to hold store managers and their...
View ArticleOur Attitude More Than Our Aptitude Determines Our Altitude
Our society admires strength and power. Since the early games of the ancient Olympics, we've had contests of strength, stamina, speed, and the like.
View ArticleOur Values Set Our Priorities
Our values hierarchy sets our priorities. It determines where we spend our time. For example, do we choose to watch TV or invest that time in personal improvement? Do we sleep longer or go jogging? Do...
View ArticleOur Values Shape Our Character And Culture
Visions and values are an inseparable matched set. One grows from and in turn spawns the other. Both provide the basis for the skills we choose to develop, time we choose to invest, and the improvement...
View ArticlePassionate Leaders Rally People to The Cause
People rally around passionate leaders with a compelling vision and purpose. Those who are so passionate about their work that they have turned it into a cause draw us, like insects to the back porch...
View ArticlePeople Live Up or Down to a Leader's Expectations
It's a values issue that's very closely related to visioning or imaging - the behavior we get in those who look to us for leadership is often shaped by the picture we have of them. They become what we...
View ArticlePersistence Goes The Distance
Failure often results from following the line of least persistence. Despite the book titles, magazine articles, and guru claims, there are no quick and easy ways to health, happiness, wealth, teamwork,...
View ArticlePersonal Improvement Planning And Discipline
Do I have the improvement habit? Am I a lazy learner? Do I act as if my formal education was an inoculation that's left me set for life? Am I a dedicated life long learner? Am I constantly on the grow?...
View ArticlePinpointing My Leadership Position
For thousands of years ships were smashed to bits on the rocks of well-charted hazards like shoals or islands. Often this happened on much-traveled routes where the hazards were well known to navigators.
View ArticleProcess Management Improves The Horizontal Flow
Our traditional functional or vertically managed organizations force the people in them to act like those foolish sailors. Individual departments such as accounting, production, sales, service, or...
View ArticleProfits Are a Reward Not a Purpose
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Why do you go to work? What do you want to be remembered for when you're gone? Why do you exist? What about your team or organization? Why does it exist?...
View ArticlePurposeful Leaders Make Meaning
In our organization and team development consulting at The CLEMMER Group, we often bring groups of people together to get their perspectives on strengths and weaknesses, improvement opportunities, and...
View ArticleRecognition And Appreciation Inspires And Energizes
Variations of management by exception are leading causes of the demoralization and fear that's rampant in so many groups and organizations. People feel criticized, ignored, unappreciated, and even used.
View ArticleReflection And Renewal
Over 100 years later the tradition of industrious stupidity continues. If we're not paying close attention, we can get caught running flat out with our head down. We can race down dead-end roads and...
View ArticleRetaining Top People
There are many complex reasons why some organizations are more successful than others in attracting and retaining the best people. However, studies reveal some common patterns. The most significant of...
View ArticleReward And Recognition Reinforce Paternalism or Partnerships
It seemed like a good idea at the time. As The Achieve Group (my first training and consulting company) was rapidly growing and hiring new people, I put together a sales incentive and recognition...
View ArticleRinging True to Me
Once five fingers stood side by side on a hand. They were all friends. Where one went, the others went. They worked together. They played together. They ate and washed and wrote and did their chores...
View ArticleSeeing Only What Is or What Could Be
Joel was a realist. He prided himself in being practical and "down to earth." He was very skeptical about new ideas and changes. "You'll have to prove it to me. I'll believe it when I see it," he often...
View ArticleSeeing The World as We Are
We find what we focus upon. Whether I think my world is full of richness and opportunity, or garbage and despair - I am right. It's exactly like that - because that's my point of focus. By focusing...
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