The opportunity for customers or competitors to get the jump on new innovations in your area of business increases daily.

 

I dislike using large company examples but P&G is worth being inspired by.

 

P&G transformed itself from a lumbering consumer products company into a limber innovation machine. In 2000, it found itself isolated from the networks that were creating value in their field, and unable to keep up with rising marketplace demands for growth and innovation.Its CEO led the company on an ambitious campaign to restore greatness by sourcing up to 50% of its new innovations from outside [...] read more »

 

Companies who see the value of workplace collaboration and leveraging external knowledge/resources are addressing pivotal people management issues:

 

What kinds of talent and expertise should they seek to retain inside their boundaries, and what should they seek to harness externally?

How do they weave external and internal resources together?

 

With increasing access to external capabilities many organizations will opt to employ smaller and more decentralized teams, whose principal role will be to orchestrate value creation rather than participate directly in it. Their job will be to identify and [...] read more »

 

I have been a long time fan of customized learning (e.g. leaders pick courses from various Exec Ed offering around the world) as an alternative to MBA or EMBA programs.   This approach has worked superbly for executives because it has allowed them to circumvent program rigidity and focus on practical learning opportunities.

 

But…”The Times Are A-Changin’” even more now than when early Boomers were leaving high school (Bob Dylan issued this song in 1964).

 

 

B-Schools are making adjustments for the leaders of tomorrow and we can extrapolate lessons for our own in-house leadership development of [...] read more »

 

With shareholder pressure on the rise since early October, many companies will be looking to hire skilled, experienced individuals to improve productivity quickly.

 

Those new employees, however, often bring baggage from prior jobs that can negate the benefits of their prior experience, according to new Wharton research.

 

According to the paper, "Habits, routines, and scripts that contribute to performance in one organizational context may detract from performance in a different organizational context.”

 

If you have a strong culture and a clear strategy in doing things that differ from your competitor, [...] read more »

My friends at Wikination.ca, the young men and women who are emerging as leaders, tell me that in their research, conversations, and personal experiences four leadership development needs appear to resonate with Young Professionals (YPs). Here is what they say they need:

 

Patience For a generation that has grown up in a [...] read more »

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to an idea and connected by a way to communicate.

 

Corporations have always created their own tribes around their offices or their markets – tribes of employees or customers – mostly based on geography.

 

Now there are more tribes (read social networks), influential tribes, horizontal and vertical tribes, and tribes that could not have existed before, inside and outside organizations.

 

As well, there are now thousands of ways [...] read more »

  Will you still need me, will you still feed me

When I’m sixty-four

Who would have thought back when the Beatles recorded this song that the kids who played Sgt. Pepper’sLonely Hearts Club Band would actually be concerned with getting the corporate equivalent of valentines, birthday greetings, and a proverbial bottle of wine? Yet as leading elements of the Baby Boom generation near retirement (or at least the end of their full-time working years), they are concerned about being needed and adding value.

 As the makers of Botox® and Rogaine® can attest, [...] read more »

 

Leadership is all about performance and many organizations are now eager to move up in time their new hires’ breakeven point - i.e. the point at which they have contributed as much value to their new organizations as they have consumed from it. The 6.2 month statistic is from a 2007 survey by Monster.com.

 My experience over the last five years is there are three approaches to ‘taking on’ talent. Some may hold an orientation session, others have mitigated the dangers of newly promoted /hired leaders with the basic offerings of fit assessment, onboarding roadmaps and executive coaching. An emerging [...] read more »

 

I have just spent a week at the Niagara Institute attending one of their offerings, the Leadership Development Program, as a guest. It appears that they are interested in my involvement as a facilitator and coach.

 

 Here are some thoughts. The majority of leaders judge themselves on their intentions. Others, however, judge leaders on their impact. The LDP bridges the gap between intent and impact. Through a comprehensive suite of assessment instruments (CPI, FIRO-B, Change Style Indicator and two 360-degree assessments), peers and coach feedback, leaders learn to adapt their style to become more [...] read more »

Before you bought your last new business suit, you probably stepped in front of a three-way mirror to see how you looked in it. You may have caught a glimpse of yourself at an angle you've never seen before, a view you hardly recognized. If we can live for years without seeing a complete picture of our physical selves, imagine what we fail to recognize about our less visible qualities: our behavior, talents, attitudes, potential. I recently met the head of an established medical products organization, he has spent twenty years [...] read more »