Every business should do at least SOME business planning before starting or expanding operations. Whether that’s the two page version with targets, the five page variant with some analysis (more on that next week), or the 37 page detailed masterpiece, every business needs to do some of this. There are two basic steps to business …
Moses, Dorothy, and the Hero’s journey We have been focusing on leaders’ deep systemic stories–how they were formed, how they shape your leadership behavior, and how you can learn to see, and if you desire, change them. In this post, we will look at the larger cultural context for our individual stories. Making Meaning through …
Successful people are those who have a Vision. They are fulfilled because they are living a life by their own design. They accomplish more in less time because they know where they are going. Here are 3 Coaching Tips for Creating Your Vision: 1. Begin with the End in Mind. In 5, 10, 20+ years …
From the days of ancient warfare, large armies have struggled with an inherent disadvantage: Sheer size presents an easy target for a quick and nimble attack force. The red-coated, regimented British struggled to fend off undisciplined American revolutionaries. The Vietnam era Americans could not defend themselves adequately from the pesky, unpredictable Viet Cong. In the …
Certification programmes in vocational qualifications have exploded in the past 10 years or so, and the project management world is no different. In the US, the Project Management Institute’s “PMP” qualification probably leads to way. In the UK we have a similar qualifications from our own “Association of Project Management”, for example “APMP” – we …
There is a lot of information written about motivation. New manager/leader training found in organizations and books everywhere has at least one course or chapter devoted to the topic of employee motivation. Located within the material, one will find lists of tips and tricks to keeping employees happy and motivated to meet performance objectives.
In the book, Dynamical Leadership: Building Adaptive Capacity for Uncertain Times, Royce Holladay and Kristine Quade offer a model of leadership built on assumptions about organizations as complex systems. While some of these may sound counter to traditional approaches, they express a worldview of human system dynamics that honors inherent complexity of organizations in the 21st century and explain why adaptive capacity is crucial today.
The most critical factor in creating a MG Program is the availability and willingness of a Leadership cadre — volunteers who will accept responsibility for the success of that program. It is a “given,” in the creation of a major gifts program, that if you build a relationship with your “Friends”/“Prospects” that involves them — …
We need just a bit more theory before we can take the next step, which is broadening this monologue on systems from theory to principles of re-design and change. A little more theory might be a foundation of informed actions. The diagram about the organization as a socio-technical system (below) is a useful view of …
I recently provided a training on Supervising Millenials. We discussed whether in our digitally driven life we are becoming more attention deficit that in previous eras. There are so many opportunities to be distracted- such as reading interesting blogs! If you feel you must answer that email, text or IM immediately, you may want to …
