Insights on 360° feedback and leadership development
First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Gallup (2016). NY: Gallup Press. The first thing you should know is that this is a re-release of a bestseller from 1999. As far as I could…
You don’t have to be an Angela Merkel or a Nikola Tesla to make a difference in your organization. Anybody who pays attention can see things that can be improved. Maybe it’s a work process that can be streamlined, or…
John Addison demonstrates Southern charm and homespun wisdom in his memoir about his leadership of Primerica during the last decade’s economic downturn. He and his co-CEO managed to keep their financial company from melting down, unlike so many others. Instead,…
You’ve probably heard about the magic that is supposed to happen when you practice Management by Walking Around. This is a term coined by management guru Tom Peters in the 1980s when he noticed that good managers communicate a lot…
Bridging the Soft Skills Gap: How to Teach the Missing Basics to Today’s Young Talent, by Bruce Tulgan. 2015. NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Whenever I talk to colleagues about their work situations, most of those who are over…
Every day we are measured against the yardsticks of averages. The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average—like GPA, personality assessments, standardized test results, and performance review ratings—reveal something meaningful about our potential is so ingrained in our society…
The skill set of a good leader must be both wide and deep. Some skills are innate, and others are learned and developed. Remember television’s popular boss, Michael Scott? His skill set was thin and shallow. As much as we…
Adam Steltzner, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, led the team that landed the Curiosity on Mars in 2012. Curiosity is a 2,000 pound, $2.5 billion, car-sized robotic rover that is exploring Gale Crater as part of NASA’s Mars…
I was initially put off by the title of this book, because I loved “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, and this seemed to be an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Collins’ book. But, after a few pages,…
Finkelstein is one of the big names in management/leadership circles. He’s the director of Tuck’s Center for Leadership at Dartmouth College, and a consultant and speaker to senior executives around the globe. So when he speaks (or writes), it’s wise…