Blog Archives

Why Clarity Is a Competitive Advantage

Have you every driven while blindfolded? I hope the answer is no! But I bring up the question as a way to illustrate why creating clarity as a leader is so critical. Now, back to the analogy. Let’s say that

Posted in Articles, Responsibility, Value

Distinguishing “Workable” from “Fair”

As a parent of three young ladies, I often find myself embroiled in household battles over fairness. On almost a daily basis, I hear things like, “That’s not fair!” when it comes to everything from who gets time on the

Posted in Articles, Responsibility

Confessions of a Craven CEO

In May 2012, I “challenged” my team to cut costs and increase revenue. Actually, I flat-out demanded that they do it. Because of my commitment to my company’s mission, vision, and values, I like to think I can be pretty

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Creating Opportunities to Deliver Value

We talk a lot about delivering value at our organization, and we do a great job of putting that into practice. However, there is a step that occurs beforehand that allows us to even get to that point: creating those

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The Performance Conversation

The performance conversation is the third of three critical conversations for supervisors to have with team members and prospective hires. The supervisor will first want to ascertain the team members’ commitment to and alignment with the organization’s values via the

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The Brazil Test

Does it ever occur to you that perhaps fewer people could easily do all of the work that your business requires? Certainly, one indication that the people-to-work ratio is off-kilter is when team members are sitting around waiting for work;

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A Management Compass: Using the Hoshin Star to Rank Priorities

Organizations always have a number of competing priorities, and determining which ones require our immediate attention can be a huge challenge. It’s impossible to tackle every available opportunity and problem in all areas at once, but if we rank our

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Delivering Value in a Service Organization

By Ralph Dandrea, Frederick Beer, Jonathan Coupal and Sean Flaherty Service organizations usually don’t become successful, and stay successful, by accident. More likely, its leaders have recognized what works and have assimilated those factors into its mission, vision and values.

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Commitment: All or Nothing

People tend to talk about commitment in fractions, as though we can be partially committed to something. But the purpose of making a commitment is to let someone know that he or she can rely upon us to act a

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Merging Technical and Personal Performance to Create Stellar Customer Relationships

Creating a loyal client relationship requires great personal performance and great technical performance. Customers actually sometimes care less about what they ask for than about how they are treated. We can never achieve a high level of customer loyalty without

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