So you are working with someone who is not very motivated and does the minimum needed to keep their job. That’s frustrating, but what can you do?
Why Do You Journal?
I’ve been journaling for a long time. I got my first journal when I was 6 years old. I still have it! I go back from time to time to read over these and it turns out, when I was 6, I used to write only about the bad things that were happening…
Planting Seeds of Leadership
Over the holidays, I had an incredible opportunity to travel to Lebanon and facilitate a five- day leadership program with youth from all over the world. It was an experience that I had been looking forward to for a number of months. It was also one that I was nervous about. I had never been to the Middle East before and I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Collaboration and Cross Functional Effectiveness – What Does That Really Mean?
The other day I was speaking with the Senior Manager of Organizational and Leadership Development at a major corporation, and this is what she had to say:
Why would someone want to improve collaboration and cross functional effectiveness?
It’s easier to get things done
You don’t have to spend time trying to “sell” your idea or influence people
You have alliances with key stakeholders and know what you are doing is important
Your stakeholders understand the value
Transformational Change: An EQ Success Story
John Gardner, Systems Engineering Manager at Medrad, a medical devices company, was recognized as someone with a high degree of technical skills and an ability to “get things done.” But at what cost?
According to John, “Although senior management liked that I got things done, they were frustrated with my methods of dealing with people. Essentially, management was saying, “John, we love you, but we want to shoot you!”
John focused only on the outcomes of the work, believing that task completion was much more important than people’s feelings. “On the one hand, I was receiving performance reviews at the top of the performer range. Then I got a letter saying that if I didn’t change my style, I might be fired.” John couldn’t believe that he was being knocked for his interpersonal style when he was delivering such amazing results!
The Leadership Gap
In a recent study of senior leaders around the globe, 91% of those surveyed saw strong leadership capability as critical to their firm’s continued growth, yet only 8% considered their own leadership teams to be “excellent.”
This difference between the need for strong leadership and the current lack of it has been referred to as the ‘leadership gap.’ By some estimates, this gap can influence bottom-line profit margins in an organization by as much as 47%! How does leadership, or a lack of leadership, cost your organization?
Our Everyday Armour
High school can be a really scary place for teens sometimes. The dangers of bullying, of feeling like they don’t fit in, or the perceived threats that can come from a teacher on a bad day or what a parent is going to do when they find out their son or daughter didn’t do well on a test are all things that young people want to keep themselves safe from.
So what are the things that keep teens feeling safe? I asked that question last week to a group of teens I was working with.
Does EQ Make You Want to Hit Someone?! A conversation with Ronnie Lot
I had the pleasure of presenting with Ronnie Lott – the hall of fame defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers – at the Avaya Sales conference this past Sunday. We had a conversation beforehand that included a discussion of EQ. When he got on stage he said “I was talking to Bill about Emotional Intelligence, and it got me really jacked up – now I want to hit someone!” That’s the first time a discussion on EQ has had that affect on someone.
The Power of Your Story
A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I were in Toronto checking out this really cool spoken word event. As we were sitting there, listening to these passionate people share their stories and talent with us, we began talking about what it means to have a story and to share it with others.
It reminded me of when I was first offered the opportunity to be a youth speaker. One of the first things I thought to myself was “I’m pretty average…what could I possibly share with young people to help them?”
Execution is Not Easy: Having the Conversations that Matter
Are you losing 50% of your business strategy’s value because of conversations that aren’t happening? Execution is not easy. Some of the most brilliant business plans (think Sony Betamax, or the Ford Edsel) or critical organizational goals fail to gain traction not because of the quality – but because of the execution – of the plan or goal.
One measure of the cost of poor execution can be found in a survey of 197 CEO’s reported in the Harvard Business Review, who were asked how well their business strategies converted into business results. Their estimate? 37% of the value to be gained from the business strategy was lost in execution; worse yet, one third of those CEO’s estimated their loss at over 50%! Why is that?
