October, 2012

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The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership

Leadership Freak

The challenges of leadership are inside leaders. Stop blaming organizations and others for your shortfalls and failures. Take the bull by the horns. You are the bull. The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership: Humility during success. Confidence during setbacks. Stepping back so others can step up. Putting plans into action – Follow through. Experience shows [.].

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Is it OK for Leaders to Be Scared?

Kevin Eikenberry

At this time of the year being scared or scary is kinda cool – after all it is Halloween! But this is a short season and leaders lead all year long, so the question asked by the title of this piece is a good one – “is it ok for leaders to be scared?” Most [.].

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The “Cookie-Dough” Analogy

GMC

This is a great metaphor that I came up with that applies to most high tech products, and could certainly make the a point to all innovative companies with a product development group. Click on the link to see the diagram (below). What do you all think? Post by: Ryan Stock.

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10 Reasons Leaders Fail, Plus One

Leadership Freak

“The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” William Pollard Organizations fail because leaders fail and leaders fail because they: Stop learning. Don’t build the team. Can’t collaborate. Won’t adapt. Won’t delegate. Assume. Blame. Lack focus. Don’t communicate. Don’t plan. Adapted from contributions on Facebook (10/16/12).

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Overcoming the Reason People Resist Change

Leadership Freak

“In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” Warren Buffett Talking about change is easy, acceptable, even exciting. Talking and executing are two different things. Change becomes real when we have to change our own attitudes and behaviors, not until. The wrong picture: Change movements [.].

Energy 94
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8 Powerful Ways to Inspire Courage in Others

Leadership Freak

The past is the future, apart from courage and perseverance. Success is persistently taking the next step. Taking the next step takes courage. “You will never do anything in this world without courage” Aristotle “In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.” Goethe The [.].

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How to Quickly End Useless Meetings

Leadership Freak

More lying happens in meetings than any other place in your organization. Most lies are lies of silence. In meetings, silence isn’t consent, its cowardice, self-interest, manipulation, or political expediency. Honesty, more than anything else, transforms meetings. Truth-telling ends useless meetings. When there’s more honesty in the “meeting after the meeting,” excellence is a myth.

Manager 93
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Letting Go of the 12 Behaviors Holding You Back

Leadership Freak

12 Behaviors that always hold leaders back: Avoiding. Avoiding is the path to mediocrity. Copying others and loosing you. Copying others is useful when it aligns with your strengths. When it doesn’t align, it creates stress, pressure, frustration, and failure. Over thinking and under acting; stressing preparation over execution. Most organizations plan well and execute poorly. [.].

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6 Ways Successful Leaders Think

Leadership Freak

Only fools plan to fail. Leaders always plan to succeed. Working on plans is working to anticipate and nullify reasons for failure. But, failure happens in spite of plans. There’s more to success than hard work. The uncomfortable truth is sincere, smart, hardworking people fail all the time. Success demands hard work and right thinking. Learning [.].

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Seven Power Tips for Spotting Future Leaders

Leadership Freak

You’ll fail apart from surrounding yourself with talented people. This means: Great leaders identify and develop great leaders. One of my favorite Jack Welch quotes is, “The team with the best players wins.” But, how do you identify the best players? Look for those who are: Already active. Frustrated. They look around and don’t like [.].

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Change Management 101: A Practical 3 Part Guide

Implementing new tools or business processes in your organization? Lemon Learning put together a practical 3 part guide to prevent the pitfalls of change management. Drive a successful change management project from diagnosis through to measurement.

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The Confidence/Competence Loop

Kevin Eikenberry

There are several basic areas of study that, as we study them, we can become more effective coaches and leaders. This long list includes both human behavior and learning. The psychological concept I want to talk about today comes from the intersection of these two fields of study. Don’t worry; I’m not going to go [.].

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How the Need for Fairness Destroys People

Leadership Freak

The need for fairness prevents people in the middle from reaching the top. Every organization of any size has slackers, drifters, and fence sitters. Top management should deal with them, but sometimes they don’t. It’s not fair that you give 100% while they give 75%, or less. The need for fairness whispers in your ear, [.].

Manager 91
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So You Screwed Up …

Leadership Freak

Mistakes make you feel dumb, even though they are the path to wisdom. Few things change us more than mistakes. Not making mistakes is worse than making them. Sometimes the best way to move forward is looking back. Rather than ignoring mistakes, relive them. I asked, Irv Rothman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, about making [.].

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How to Make a Difference that Matters

Leadership Freak

A life that matters is not about desire; it’s about how. Leaders who make a difference develop internally and explore externally. Neglect one and you won’t make a difference that matters. Component one: High impact begins internally with who you are. From this vantage point, making a difference that matters is all about you. It [.].

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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.

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The 10 Ways to Gain Influence

Leadership Freak

If leadership is influence then dominance and coercion aren’t leading. Police have rightful authority to control. Relying on power, authority, or position, makes you look like a cop writing speeding tickets. Danger: Dominant leaders achieve compliance at the expense of loyally, inspiration, and innovation. If you want to lead, increase your influence.

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The Secret to Creating the Future

Leadership Freak

Frustrated leaders spend far too much time focused on the past and far too little time creating the future. They’re always saying, “What are we doing wrong?” The past cannot be changed. Stop trying to fix it. If you don’t have clear vision for the future, looking back destroys you. Your past can be: A [.].

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When Collaboration Doesn’t Work

Leadership Freak

Stop bowing at the altar of collaboration. It’s usually better to work with others, to collaborate. But, collaboration isn’t always useful or necessary. Collaboration can be cumbersome, ineffective, or detrimental. Sometimes, having someone work for you is better than working with them. Collaboration isn’t useful when: Time is short. Collaboration is slower than working alone.

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Six Keys to Better Impromptu Speaking

Kevin Eikenberry

Have you ever found yourself in a situation like these? You are sitting in the meeting, when your boss’ boss asks you – “what do you think?” Or you are asked to stand and share your thoughts on a topic you haven’t considered before or weren’t prepared to discuss. If you have, you’d likely agree [.].

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Revitalizing Dry Content: A Lesson in Engagement

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

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The Secret Power of Hearing Shadows

Leadership Freak

Listening is a skill. Hearing someone is a gift. My dad’s first words when I told him about my new job were, “It’s not very close to home.” I was a fresh college graduate in Missouri. He was back home in Maine and the job was in Pennsylvania. I did the easy thing. I heard [.].

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The Feedback Question that Changes Everything

Leadership Freak

When was the last time you received useful feedback? Everyone who craves excellence craves feedback. You need to know how you’re doing and how to improve. You’ll never reach excellence without feedback. Honesty is problem one: The higher you go the more likely people say what they’re expected to say, not what they believe. Honest [.].

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5 Strategies that Defeat Drifting

Leadership Freak

The trouble with teams is drifters; people who hide behind the work of others. Drifters are more than annoying; they’re dangerous, damaging dead weight. Drifters de-motivate the motivated and drain energy from the energized. Poorly run teams protect low performers. Energized team members ask, “Why am I busting my butt?” when drifters succeed. Dealing with drifters: [.].

Energy 86
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High Performer or High Potential

Leadership Freak

All leaders always keep watch for high performers they can move into greater responsibilities. You’re a lousy leader who may succeed in the short-term but fail in the end, if you don’t. Seduction: Passion to develop great teams seduces leaders into hoping high performers are high potentials. But… All high performers are not high potentials. [.].

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Brain Fog HQ: Memory Enhancement Techniques for Professional Development

Speaker: Chester Santos – Author, International Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, Memory Expert, U.S. Memory Champion

In October, scientists discovered that 75% of patients who experienced brain fog had a lower quality of life at work than those who did not. At best, brain fog makes you slower and less efficient. At worst, your performance and cognitive functions are impaired, resulting in memory, management, and task completion problems. In this entertaining and interactive presentation, Chester Santos, "The International Man of Memory," will assist you in developing life-changing skills that will greatly enha

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10 Proven Ways to Run Great Meetings

Leadership Freak

Poorly run meetings are like garbage strewn along the organizational highway. Useful meetings are like the Sumatran Tiger, powerful but nearly extinct. Great organizations have great meetings. 7 reasons meetings suck: They’re too long. They lack purpose and outcomes. The wrong people are in the room. Participants aren’t accountable for results. Participants engage in turf [.].

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Right or Wrong Isn’t the Issue

Leadership Freak

This post is inspired by a reader who writes, “I believe that leaders make decision not based on what is right or wrong but what is relevant in the context.” Most leadership decisions are about good, better, and best, not right and wrong. They aren’t moral. Moral decisions aren’t compromised. Options, on the other hand, are explored and [.].

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Seven Keys to More Effectively Leading Teams

Kevin Eikenberry

Maybe you find yourself in a new team environment and leading a team for the first time, or maybe you have been working with and leading teams forever. Either way, the keys in this article – whether as new information or a fresh reminder – can make a world of difference in morale, productivity, and [.].

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The Power of Reflection

Kevin Eikenberry

If I could give you a tool or resource that would change your life in positive ways, change your results, create more happiness in your life, and help you get better at anything you desired. And if I could promise you that this tool would cost you nothing, require only yourself, and [.].

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How to Get What You Want

Leadership Freak

It takes conviction, candor, and courage to push against the boss or the board. Managers who can’t stand up and push back are inevitably pushed around and down. Yesterday, I talked with the President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, Irv Rothman. He leads 1,500 employees in over 50 countries. His book, “Out-Executing the Competition” [.].

Manager 84
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Seven Steps to Setting Clear Expectations

Kevin Eikenberry

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the importance of expectations in the workplace and the four basic areas where expectations are required. As I was writing it, I knew people might want the logical next step. once we realize the ultimate importance of expectations, and the areas in which [.].

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How to Win by Leaning In

Leadership Freak

Strong winds blow you down when you lean back. Successful leaders lean into resistance, adversity, failure, and criticism. Leaning away from resistance is a sure way to be blown down by resistance. Not: Welcome and learn from the stormy parts of leading. Don’t reject them. Leaning-in isn’t fighting-off. Lean against: Change encounters resistance.

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The Untapped Secret of Leadership Success

Leadership Freak

Jack K. is one of the most popular and well-known guys in my community. One reason, he tells stories. He has a bucket of stories that I’ve heard several times and want to hear again. This morning, I’ll see Jack and ask him to tell what I call the, “Two Invoice Story,” again. Stories: Inspire. Instruct. Enlighten. [.].

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How to Uncover Your Greatest Value

Leadership Freak

Image source The people you serve determine the value you bring. The owners of a growing company didn’t appreciate the greatest value they brought their customers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t their products and services. Their best customers said: They understand us and our business. They take the time to understand the way we do things. I [.].

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The Most Misused Tool in Meetings

Kevin Eikenberry

There are plenty of things that can go wrong with meetings, and the litany of complaints about them is long. In my 30 years of attending, observing, and facilitating meetings, one of the biggest challenges I’ve seen is groups staying on topic. The problem is a natural one – if you put a group of [.].

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