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Unforgivable Power?

The Center for Creative Leadership studied 21 derailed executives, who were expected to go higher in the organization, but had reached a plateau in their careers and were fired or forced to retire early. They were compared with 20 managers who made it all the way to the top. The researchers found the two groups astonishingly alike. Every one of the 41 executives possessed remarkable strengths, and everyone was flawed by one or more significant weaknesses. So a person can make a lot of mistakes and have certain weaknesses and still rise to success. But a close study of the

Advocating Inquiry

Gavin is my youngest grandson. Like many healthy children at age three, he is captivated by the sound of his voice and zealously curious…his mouth runs like an outboard motor. Last week, my wife and I ate dinner with Gavin and family. During the meal, everyone was engaged in a debate about a local community issue, except Gavin. He sat intensely silent, politely waiting for a chance to jump into the conversation. Finally, someone took a breath. And he got his motor running…rattling off a litany of brilliantly ordered, utterly random (and pretty compelling) questions in record time: “Why is

Retention – Who Will Go First?

Family Matters A mid -size family business, run by a father and his two sons, was having trouble retaining their part-time employees. We met for a compression planning session to get a solution to this problem. As we began the session, a few questions came to mind. “What’s an example of a company that’s world-class at retaining part -time employees?” I asked. They thought together for a bit and agreed that “Chik-fil-A” was a good example of a company great at employee retention. “Why do you think “Chik-fil-A” is so effective?” The two sons started rattling off reasons, “good pay,

Looking Both Ways

Small cutthroat trout scurried about the shallows of the gin clear mountain stream fighting for their next meal. At the edge of an eddy sat a very large trout. She rose, at her rhythm, sipping a grasshopper here or a beetle there. I lifted my fly rod to cast my terrestrial fly upstream of the big fish. Suddenly my line was tight, but it was not attached to my quested fish. It was tangled in the mass of reeds behind me. Had I looked back before I cast, I would have realized I needed to move only one step more

Extreme New Year

Around this time many people stop, consider their life mission and set resolutions. Ongoing studies show that around 78% of these resolutions are never kept or achieved, which means around 22% are kept or achieved. If you are in the larger group that too often misses annual goals, which can lead to disappointment or if you are in the smaller group that reach your resolutions, but finds faint satisfaction in getting what you thought you wanted, I offer two very different goal setting approaches to consider for 2012. First is a free online tool for people who can’t think of

Adults Only

There are no problems more difficult to solve than personnel issues at work. She grew up in the country and worked her way through nursing school. After graduation and passing the state board exams, she began her job at a large hospital. She was a natural leader and after a few years was promoted to be a supervisor. At the end of her first year as a manager, she was told she needed to complete a formal evaluation of all her employees and review it with them. Her manager handed her the appraisal forms, wished her luck and told her

Three Questions Played Out

For the last 2 years I’ve had the privilege of leading a portion of an annual leadership weekend retreat for Troop 63 of The Boy Scouts of America. It is held at The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. The purpose of this weekend retreat is to encourage and refocus high school scouts who are naturally distracted by new car fumes and perfume daily. Our hope is to create a compelling experience that will help them stay on track to achieve Eagle Scout and to make better informed college, career and life decisions. This program was conceived and designed

Your Career or Your Life

Career misfits can shorten your life. A 15-year study on aging conducted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, found the strongest predictor of longevity was work satisfaction. The second best predictor was overall happiness. These two socio-physiological measures predicted longevity better than a physician’s exam of physical functioning, measure of use of tobacco, or genetic inheritance. Controlling these other variables statistically did not alter the dominant role of work satisfaction. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review tilted, Must Success Cost so Much?, reported on a five-year study involving 2,000 managers and their spouses. Research concluded

Friends & Focus Remembered

Making a change is simple; managing the transition is not. Chinese fortune cookie messages and Chinese food share a common characteristic; both are easy not to remember. This assumption was about to change for me. Not long after my decision to leave a 10 year partnership at Vantage Associates and join my new firm HRM, an oriental waiter handed me a fortune cookie. It read, “Your judgment is a bit off at this time. Rely on friends.” I read it twice. I put it in my wallet. When a significant change occurs, whether by choice or coercion, most people get

Leadership Cuisine

All his life he wanted to be a banker. While in college, he took a job in a New Jersey restaurant and “fell addicted to the adrenal rush that happens during a dinner service.” Twenty-five years after that fateful day, Mario Batali now operates and owns 14 top-tier Italian restaurants renowned for simple, elegant, authentic cuisine. Recently, he was asked how he, a person with little formal training in management, built this thriving enterprise and maintained such high consistency and quality. He said, “It was mainly by trial and error.” Batali is a man with many excellent food recipes, but

Life Sentences

In 1962, Clare Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some practical counsel to President John. F. Kennedy. “A great president,” she told him, “is one sentence. Abraham Lincoln’s one sentence was, He preserved the union and freed the slaves. Franklin Roosevelt’s was, He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win the war.” Luce feared that the young Kennedy’s attention was wavering among such different priorities and that his sentence risked becoming a muddled paragraph. These wise words about career clarity probably made a different in President Kennedy’s success

H.R. or H.B.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein Both Ted and Ed are CEO’s. Each man runs his business in a very different manner. Teds’ company is well positioned and could be an industry leader, but whenever business gets off track Ted’s reaction is to make derogatory remarks about his staff’s level on the food chain. Then he institutes a new “carrot or stick” incentive plan to try to improve performance. The problem is that this tactic is based

Conflict & Leadership Strategy

A Dilbert cartoon about succession planning was in last week’s newspaper. The big-haired Vice President said to her balding boss, “So, this means if something horrible happens to you, I’d get a promotion!” Next frame: a this-was-a-bad-idea thought bubble appears above his head. He never sits with his back to his office door again. Succession planning began to show up on our clients’ strategic plans back in 2003. It is still listed on most of those plans today, because it hasn’t been addressed. At the mention of the S word, an image of impending personal conflict is often conjured up.