Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting where the speaker was Commander Kirk Lippold, USN (Ret.).   Commander Lippold was the Commanding Officer of the USS Cole that came under a suicide terrorist attack by alQaeda in 2000.  The bravery and quick thinking of Commander Lippold and his crew saved the American war ship from sinking as well as prevented further loss of life.

Commander Lippold lists his “Five Pillars of Leadership”.  They are: Continue reading ‘What is Leadership Excellence?’ »

Have you been watching the new TV series – Undercover Boss. While I prefer to watch it on CBS.com to save time, I found the show and the story lines very interesting and very important for the executives involved. Then it hit me – How Many Executives Do the Undercover Boss Thing?

What a concept – going into the day to day operations of your company or enterprise and learning how things actually are going. This takes the “Management by Walking Around” concept to the ultimate level.

So what can you learn from using this new (old) technique? Here are seven things you could learn… Continue reading ‘Be An Undercover Boss’ »

Relationships, whether familial or business, are only as good as the foundation upon which they are built.  We will be only looking at integrity within business.  If you study great leaders, one great characteristic that is constant in each leader is integrity.  Great leaders are found doing what is right regardless of the circumstances.  If you research great leadership qualities, in each study you will find a list of characteristics common for leadership.

Common on these lists are: Continue reading ‘Integrity in Leadership’ »

Recently, I was in a discussion with an executive about the lack of commitment he felt was present in his staff. As we continued the discussion it became very evident that he was in the middle of a major change initiative within his group and it was not working well. As we continued our discussion one key factor became evident – he really didn’t believe it would work.

So, I visited with several of his key people and discussed the new initiative. Again, on the surface, everyone stated they were committed to the initiative however they felt two things. First, they felt their leader was not sincere since he continually did things that did not help their move forward. Second, they did not really feel it would work for various reasons.

Therefore, the initiative was doomed from the beginning. There appeared to be commitment, yet, few really believed in the success of the initiative. Thus, Commitment is Meaningless without Belief!

So what really happened? The Commitment was Meaningless without Belief. Here is what we found out… Continue reading ‘Commitment is Meaningless without Belief’ »

Well, since I wrote my last post on Generational Differences I have been doing some additional research on the topic. At first I felt this was only a managerial issue with some impact upon the hiring of qualified talent for mid-level management. Now, I see that Sales and Marketing strategies can be heavily impacted by the population waves of the generations. Depending upon your industry and who you sell your products and services, there can be a positive or negative impact.

Today, I’m only introducing the concepts regarding the relationships between the generational population waves and your business model. Let me begin by saying as a leader, you must research this important data if you want to insure the success of your company. I’m talking serious strategic impact and being unaware or ignore to this important data could cause a major failure in your industry.

So here are the areas that can be impacted by the generational waves or demographics to the sales and marketing crowd… Continue reading ‘Sales and Marketing are Impacted by Generational Flow’ »

While having a discussion about the overall differences between the four generations in the workforce today, I realized I have not shared this information with the majority of my clients and the readers of Insights. So today I will share a brief description of the focus differences between the four generations.

So here are the dates of birth for the four generations and their key focus… Continue reading ‘Keys to Generational Differences’ »

In reading a research paper regarding how change is impacting our companies, I was not surprised to learn that “Top Management support” of change projects was both the top reason for success and a top five reason for failure. This shows the power of influence from above.

I have seen this time after time with clients. When the top management team or key leader supports a change initiative then it gets done. When the top leaders do not lead the change, it is no surprise that it fails due to lack of support.

So if change is going to be become one of the key methods to lead our organizations out of the current economic environment, what are you going to do as the leader of the organization, team, group, division or department? Leading change is a key competency of the best leaders I seen during the years.

If you don’t like something, tell the people that are promoting it that you don’t want it and will not support it by withholding the resources and direction they need to succeed. Simple. Just tell them rather than wait until there are major investments in time, energy and resources. Leaders are at the front – not on the side or at the back-end. Get out front and lead your people.

If you like something they want to accomplish, then get involved and show everyone that this one counts. Let people know that you want to see results from the change initiative. It is interesting how fast people will rally around the initiative and get things done. Again, leaders make a difference during periods of change.

If you need assistance in a change management situation, contact us at 901-757-4434. We have been assisting our clients with change initiatives for over twenty years.

Looking for the good old days where everything was fairly predictable? Well, welcome to the new world where Change is the New Norm. This will be the standard that new leaders and managers will be judged upon – their ability to become Change Masters.

Okay, so what is happening that causes this new round of change? We are in a dynamic new work environment that is changing the definition of norm or “normal.” The new world includes the continuing effects of globalization, complexity, technological advances in many functional arenas, joint ventures, and hard to locate boundaries between organizations. Continue reading ‘Change is the New Norm’ »

Looking around at all the headlines and listening the discussions at management meetings, it is obvious why we are in a recession. No one wants to spend any money.

Well, I remember a wise and wealthy Cajun from Louisiana who liked me and shared a lot of his personal philosophies with me. One that I will always remember was…

“You got to Spend Money to Make Money!”

Now this statement is not rocket science, yet, it is sound economic theory if you want to make money in the future. Let me rephrase it to… Continue reading ‘You’ve Got to Spend Money to Make Money’ »

This is a question that seems to get more attention during periods of tough economic times. There are supporters for both sides of this question, so why ask the question?

Well, in a perfect world we would have a specialist called Chief Executive Officer and the question would go away. However, since they is no specialist incubator for the CEO position we have to deal with the question at hand. Who makes a better CEO – a specialist or a generalist?

Here is my take on the issue and I’m looking forward to comments from others on this topic. Continue reading ‘Specialist or Generalist for CEO and Leadership?’ »