“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” – General Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army With Memorial Day this weekend in America, we honor those who have died serving in our military. The crucible of war and battle is a […]
“The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.” – Winston Churchill As Winston Churchill captures well, good communication is central to success as a leader. When your organization grows to have layers between you and other team members, the skip level meeting becomes one of your best tools for effective communication. We recently took […]
What is the key to a successful performance management process? While that’s not the most exciting question someone may ask. It’s a important and expensive one. According to Gallup, “the cost of poor management and lost productivity from employees in the U.S. who are not engaged or actively disengaged [is] between $960 billion and $1.2 […]
Effective listeners know how important Epictetus’s quote is to being a great leader: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” There’s so much to be learned from others, and that only happens if you give them a chance to speak. If you’re an extrovert […]
How are my managers really doing? What’s really happening in my organization? What do my people really think? Am I missing anything important? Whether you’re a veteran leader, or brand new to having real hierarchy below you, these kinds of questions are likely to be on your mind quite often. The more removed from the […]
At the heart of Silicon Valley is the spirit of invention and innovation. Solving problems and inventing the future is what drives so many to move here and then start and build companies. Along with this inspiring innovation, there are a shocking number of bad managers here. Despite increasing attention, management and leadership continues to […]
“I apologize for the length of this letter; I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” – Mark Twain Mark Twain was right. It takes a lot of work to make a good point in just a few words. That’s part of the beauty of Twitter; the character limit forces those sharing thoughts to be […]
Everybody hates employee performance evaluations. If you’re in HR, you know how painful it is having to run them and collate the results. It can take months in a land of paper, pencil, and too many Word documents. If you’re a manager, you likely hate them as well. They’re time consuming, hard to complete with […]
Are you getting good feedback from your team? Or do they always quickly agree with anything you say and tell you everything is “good” when you ask? If you’re like most managers, you probably wish you could get more feedback from your team. Quality feedback can help you all work better together, improve your leadership […]
“We have 24 year olds managing 22 year olds, and it’s going as well as you’d expect…” The CEO of a rapidly growing company lamented this as we spoke about how he was trying to build a great company with a healthy culture. He saw the value of choosing to promote from within, but it […]
