Creating Alignment
How To Prepare For Disruption
Predictions tell us that 2020 will be the year of disruption. Is your team prepared? If your confidence is a bit shaky, now is the time to get ready.
Read MoreAre You Wasting Time On Competency Models?
Do You Really Need A Competency Model? I’ve had a lot of conversations about competency models and I’ve built a lot of them but frankly, I’m not sure I have seen the value-add. When I asked our clients why they are considering investing the time to build a competency model, here are the responses I…
Read MoreCan Resilience Be Learned?
Today’s landscape is one of unprecedented, rapid, disruptive change. With little margin for error, leaders and teams are expected to adapt to change and react to setbacks quickly. In our experience, the only way to tackle these challenges and come back stronger is by building resilience yet very few people are actively preparing to do…
Read MoreHow To Stop Coping and Start Building Resilience At Work
Defining Resilience Chances are when discussing the topic of resilience you have heard various definitions that paint a picture of “bouncing back” from stress, crisis, setbacks, etc. To test this concept, I tried bouncing a ball and realized something significant: After it hit the ground it rarely came back higher than where it had started.…
Read More3 Simple Steps to Increase Team Resilience
“An organization without purpose manages human resources, whereas an organization with purpose mobilizes people.” – Juan Carlos Eichholz Resilience Starts With Alignment Any healthy organization is formed with a specific purpose in mind. That purpose is usually defined by the organizational mission, vision, and values. However, over time an organization’s purpose can get clouded by…
Read MoreUsing Corporate Politics To Drive Change
Change Starts With Alignment The need to have people on the same page is huge when implementing a major change. This is particularly true when the change involves thinking differently to solve a problem that can’t be solved by doing things better, faster, or cheaper. Enabling leaders to get people aligned is always necessary, but…
Read MoreHow To Choose Resilience
Resilience Begins With A Choice How many times have you made a choice that did not result in the outcome you intended? Did you even know you were making a choice? Often we unconsciously choose the path of least resistance. We default to what is comfortable and requires the least amount of change. Improving our…
Read MoreHow To Kill Your Team’s Resilience
Guilt & Resentment Are you tired of corporate politics and drama? Some of us are better or more strategic in dealing with it and some organizations are more ‘political’ than others, but it’s not uncommon for there to be an unspoken or hidden layer of politics just close enough to the surface to keep us…
Read More8 Signs You Need A New Organizational Structure
When To Rethink Your Organizational Structure “Is it time for a new organizational structure?” This question does not always have an obvious answer. Organizational restructuring, by definition, can be disruptive, even when handled as smoothly as possible, and even with the best of intentions. There is always a risk that the new structure will bring…
Read MoreCorporate Restructuring That Drives Strategy
Corporate Restructuring That Works Starting a business, whether a lemonade stand or a consulting firm with a new approach to corporate restructuring, begins with a realization that something is missing in the market. Often, an entrepreneur feels so strongly about the missing piece that they are willing to drive a stake in the ground. A stake…
Read MoreThe Key To Building Adaptive Leadership
The Case For Adaptive Leadership Do the challenges you face today seem more complex than they did, say, five years ago? Does it seem like they involve more people or that it takes more involvement from stakeholders to build a solution that works? Is it starting to feel like managing stakeholders is as complex as…
Read MoreRedefine Your Comfort Zone For Breakthrough Results
“Before anything great is really achieved, your comfort zone must be disturbed.” – Ray Lewis Comfort Zones Have you ever struggled to get out of your comfort zone? At one point or another, we are all acutely aware of our comfort zone – usually when we’re bumping up against it head first. We know we…
Read More4 Qualities of Aligned Organizations
“The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, making a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.” – Peter Drucker Imagine a company where everyone – from the CEO to the newest intern – shows up knowing EXACTLY what they need to do every single day, even on those days where plans fail and…
Read MoreThe Secret To Alignment
What Alignment Looks Like Is your team 100% aligned around your organization’s goals for 2019? Are you absolutely certain that you are making the right or “bests” projects to drive change and build organizational muscle? Can you deliver with what you have been budgeted, or less? If you are not 110% aligned and committed, 2019…
Read MorePause To Build Resilience
Have you ever gone into a situation…maybe a tough conversation… with one intent in mind, only to come out having done or said something else? It happens to all of us and it can chip away at our resilience. We think we’ve got it, but it’s not easy to consciously and consistently make effective choices…
Read MoreNo One Said It Would Be Easy: Business Architects In The Digital Age
Defining Business Architecture Today, many organizations still struggle to define what the role of a Business Architect should be and how to clearly articulate the value of Business Architecture to leadership. So let’s start by dispelling some popular myths about Business Architecture. Business Architects are NOT: assigned the next ‘hot potato’ project that has been…
Read More#1 Leadership Skill Most Teams Miss
Resilience Isn’t About Bouncing Back Today’s landscape is one of unprecedented, rapid, disruptive change. With little margin for error, leaders are expected to adapt to change and react to setbacks quickly. Unfortunately, the skills required to tackle these challenges, process quickly, and come back stronger require thinking differently in ways that are rarely mentioned in…
Read MoreWhat No Consultant Will Tell You
Imagine a company with 10 senior leaders. Carol is the CEO and she’d new to her role. Her leadership team must come together and make one decision on which the future of the company hangs. They prioritize the company’s investments to drive the strategy. Here’s the catch: Every one of them (and every other leadership…
Read MoreThe Single Most Important Characteristic of Leaders
I recently had the honor of closing Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business’s Executive MBA Alumni Summit. I realized that the audience would be full of people with enough leadership potential to have their MBA paid for by a company and enough stick-to-it-iveness to get that work done while juggling high powered jobs, kids, family…
Read More3 Skills Needed for Adaptive Leadership
Traditional Training Doesn’t Produce Adaptive Leadership Skills People are constantly facing business issues they have never seen before, and they are coming at an increasing rate. Too often employees feel like running on a treadmill, going nowhere fast. The harder they run, the more worn out they become and have no progress to show for…
Read MoreWhy Playing Nice Doesn’t Work
Imagine you are a manager and you are called to a meeting by your boss to talk about team building. You walk into a room and are introduced to Fred, the ‘team building guy’. Oh, and all your peers, including the marketing guy that you hate and the HR woman that you have no time…
Read MoreHow To Stop Struggling With Organizational Change
How Are You Handling Organizational Change? Does your organization miss some of your strategic objectives each year? Do you have goals that are recycled from last year, with new names? Do departments struggle to see how they fit into the overall business strategy? Is your team tackling new projects while struggling to get the existing…
Read MoreWhat’s Your Legacy? Are You A Value-Add or a Seat Warmer?
A Human Resources executive walks into a bar with a duck on their head. One of the long-time customers, though a bit intoxicated, recognizes the difference between a hat and a duck and shouts, “… you’ve got a duck on your head. The HR executive calmly replies, “… of course, that is the only way…
Read MoreThe Secrets to Decoding Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation Is Here! Just when you thought they couldn’t come up with a new buzz word, now there is Digital Transformation! For those who want a deep dive, check out the new book, Leading Digital. For those interested in jumping to what needs to be done … read on. Digitization is here and the…
Read MoreWhat’s Next for Human Resources?
As 2018 dawns, two questions are being asked by many IBHR leaders and Chief Human Resource Officers: Is this year’s plan for my Human Resources team good enough to deliver strategic value across the organization to truly differentiate our organization from the competition? What is the next key capability that Human Resources needs to front…
Read MoreThe Blueprint for Strategic Alignment
Ever feel like your team is not hearing you? You turn around and either they are squabbling about who gets their share of limited resources, or they are off in their own space ‘working really hard.’ Unfortunately, you just can’t tell how all that work is driving your strategic agenda. All those countless meetings were…
Read More5 Tipping Points Where Mergers Fail
One Too Many Mergers? Strong economies bring growth which inherently brings change. To achieve growth, there has been a significant increase in mergers and acquisitions over the last several years. While mergers and acquisitions clearly grow organizations, there are unintended consequences that can limit and, in some cases, undermine growth. Leaders seeking growth acquire organizations…
Read MoreBlasting Personal Agendas
The Number 1 Way to Blast Personal Agendas Have you been in a meeting when personal agendas take over? Usually, everyone politely ignores Fred, the VP who’s gunning to expand his empire a bit further, all while hoping someone ‘above’ will reign him in. It’s hard not to think of the good Fred would do,…
Read MoreThe Secret of Adaptive Leadership
Adaptive Leadership: The Antidote to VUCA VUCA. The acronym that reminds us we live and work in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world. As if we needed reminding. I don’t think we have one client that isn’t trying to compensate for the pace of rapid, disruptive change, whether it be through restructuring, prioritization, building…
Read MoreDoes Your HR Budget Drive Business Strategy?
Are you spending your Human Resources budget on HR capabilities that drive strategy? All executives are accountable for budgets. How sure are you that your HR budget aligns scarce resources to drive the HR capabilities required to execute strategy? Do your internal clients complain that they are not getting the best value for their Human Resource investment?…
Read MoreBeat Up from Restructuring? The Antidote to the Aftermath
Have you ever seen a corporate restructuring where the dots didn’t connect? After all the angst that comes with organization design, have you ever felt like there was: Work that wasn’t missed until it went undone? Hand-offs between processes that don’t go smoothly? Critical decisions no one was empowered to make? Uncertainty around who was doing (or…
Read MoreGetting Real: Your Glass Is Not Half Full or Half Empty
Life is hard. That is the line I use to start talking about the model I built to help leaders develop resilience. It is always fun when the ‘rah rah’ people are sitting in the front because they tend to shake their heads and get annoyed until finally one will raise their hand and tell…
Read MoreWhy You Need A Capability Model Instead of A Competency Model To Drive Strategy
I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about building competency models. I’ve built a lot of them and frankly, I’m not sure I get the value-add, given some much larger, more concrete priorities, but here’s what I’ve been told when I asked why the company wanted to invest the time in building them: ‘We need…
Read MoreOrganization Design: How Many Is A Crowd?
At the start of every organization design project, if I am lucky, I am asked, ‘who really should be involved in this?’ If I am unlucky, there is an assumption that building the design will only involve one or two senior leaders. Unlucky in this case, usually makes for a very long project and a…
Read More8 Signs That It’s Time To Restructure Your Organization
Organization Redesign: To do or not to do (and when)? This question does not always have an obvious answer. Organization redesign, by definition can be quite disruptive, even when handled as smoothly as possible, and even with the best of intentions. There is always a risk that the new structure will bring with it some…
Read MoreSimplify The Science: Removing The Complications Behind Org. Design
It’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t had the wind knocked out of them by it: the ‘ole reengineering, right sizing, restructuring, downsizing, reorganization or transformation. I could hold a contest for the best name for it, but HR/OD folks know it as organization restructuring. In itself, there’s nothing wrong with it. Organizations outlive their…
Read MoreDifficult Conversations – How What You Were Taught Derails You From Your Message
A few years ago, Harvard Professor, Chris Argyris did some interesting research. He met with hundreds of executives preparing for conversations that involved delivering tough messages. He asked what they planned to say and how they would say it. Then he observed and recorded the meetings. In every case, the executives did not say what…
Read MorePeople Just Don’t Get It
As I help leaders find success in the face of more and more situations they are often unprepared for (reference in my last post), there is frequently a mounting frustration with people who just, ‘don’t get it.’ These seemingly clueless ones range from direct reports, to leadership, to customers and peers. They are all over…
Read MorePeople Just Don’t Get It
As I help leaders find success in the face of more and more situations they are often unprepared for (reference in my last post), there is frequently a mounting frustration with people who just, ‘don’t get it.’ These seemingly clueless ones range from direct reports, to leadership, to customers and peers. They are all over…
Read MoreWhat You Know May No Longer Apply
As I talk to clients, there are a couple really prevalent issues that are holding corporations back in today’s economy. These are issues that will require people to think differently to solve them. For years, we’ve tried to do things better, faster and cheaper. And while that is still critical, it has become the ticket…
Read More