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What Really Happens in Your Executive Meetings?

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. I can sit in and observe a senior leadership meeting and get a very clear picture of what’s going on in an organization. Does the meeting start on time? Has the agenda been circulated beforehand? Have the leader members…

Are Cancerous Behaviors Destroying Your Company’s Performance?

Cancer begins when the inner workings of one cell goes wrong. This leads to abnormal cell growth that then spreads to other cells. While cancer can be a deadly disease, early detection can dramatically improve your chances of survival. Sadly, when leaders struggle with poor performance in their organizations, they fail to use…

Is your story in the company strategy?

If you are like most senior executives, you aim to move the strategy you’ve developed into the ranks of your organization to stimulate change, create competitive advantage, and generate value for your customers. In theory it is straightforward, in practice most senior executives share that moving their strategy into the organization…

Clean Your House of Hidden Agendas

“There are hidden agendas in my team. Everyone seems friendly on the outside but there are unspoken issues under the surface,” a CEO recently shared with me. “Can you help us deal with our hidden agendas so we can put our energy and ideas back into our real business?” he asked. We’ve…

Burning to Learn in Your Executive Team?

There are three types of executive leadership teams. There’s the type that doesn’t participate in growing themselves or the team they are a part of. Their reasoning is they don’t have the time, the need, or the interest because they are too busy running their business. The second kind of executive…

Are You Really Steering Your Ship?

I took the Bodensee Ferry on my way back to Munich last week; here’s a photo from the ferry as the sun sets over Konstanz. They have installed an extra “captain’s wheel” at the back of the ferry and I watched a young boy turn the wheel to and fro as if he were steering…

High Performance Executive Meetings

Running highly effective meetings is challenging, and it’s a “must do” for leaders who strive to lead by example. Executive leaders ask me to sit in and observe what they do and how they do in in order to get new insights on how to organize and lead better executive meetings. Here…

You Can’t Lead a Divided House

I was enjoying a drink in the local beer garden near our office, it’s what one does on a warm summer day in Bavaria. For those that haven’t experienced the beer garden atmosphere, its gemütlich, a German word that doesn’t translate well into English, yet it means something like a cozy, comfortable setting.…

Tools Don’t Make a Good Carpenter (or Leader)

A multitude of tools (some simple and some sophisticated) are available to executives and hr professionals. There are tools and inventories to identify preferences and strengths, team capabilities and strategic effectiveness. Hundreds of models, personality inventories and well-intentioned leadership processes attempt to created normed leaders. Normed leaders won’t help you create breakthrough results.…