TagLeadership

Applying the 5As Framework

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Often when working with clients to design and deliver leadership training, I’m told to create an experience where participants have fun, are fully engaged in the program and learn new skills.  Recently, I partnered with a client, a major U.S.-based insurance company, that decided to raise the bar and set the expectation that learners would also apply what they learned back on their job in a way that impacts business results. To achieve this goal we applied the 5As Framework to the design and...

The Downside of Multitasking

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One of the long-standing assumptions about leadership in today’s wired and global economy is the critical importance of multitasking.  With information coming at us through email, RSS, Twitter, smart phones and the like, the ability to perform multiple actions at once, quickly prioritizing tasks and making decisions, would seem to be an important contributor to leadership success.  However, the more this vaunted “skill” comes under scrutiny, the more doubts there are about the correlation...

U.S. Army Embraces Wikis

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In July, the U.S. Army broke with long-standing tradition and began encouraging all personnel to contribute to U.S. Army Field Manual.  The Army Field Manual, which contains detailed information and how-to’s, serves as a playbook for soldiers operating in the field.  The New York Times reports: The goal, say the officers behind the effort, is to tap more experience and advice from battle-tested soldiers rather than relying on the specialists within the Army’s array of colleges and research...

A Netflix Competition Highlights Trends in Talent Management

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In October 2006, Netflix announced a competition to significantly improve the recommendation system currently used at the popular movie rental site.   Teams and individuals were competing for a $1 million prize.   Last week, an article in the New York Times reported that two finalist teams have been selected and a winner will be declared in September. There was no shortage of entries for this competition, so what was it that contributed to the success of these two teams?  When pressed, these...

8 Rules for Driving Innovation

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The global cellphone market is huge with many different players, but when I read this recently, it really caught my eye: Apple and Blackberry’s Research In Motion accounted for only 3% of all cellphones sold in the world last year but 35%of operating profits. It was a reminder of how innovation can really pay-off for a company.  This is why so many CEOs cite innovation as a key strategy, and so many companies include innovation as a cultural value. Innovation is largely regarded as one of the...

What Cancer Patients Can Teach Us About Leadership

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Almost everyone is familiar with Lance Armstrong’s journey from cancer survivor to seven time Tour de France champion.  In his autobiography, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, he credits much of his success to the mental transformation he went through while enduring a gruelling treatment regimen and narrowly escaping death.  Throughout this phase in his life, Armstrong maintained his commitment to return to professional cycling, something he cared deeply and passionately about...

Using Soccer to Teach Leadership

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Soccer is by far the world’s most popular sport.  In many ways, soccer, or football as it is known outside of America, transcends the sports world and is deeply embedded in the culture of most countries.  The hype and media saturation of soccer is going to increase steadily as we approach World Cup 2010 in South Africa.  The Confederation Cup Final, June 28th featuring the United States versus Brazil, was an exciting prelude to what we can expect next summer.                                   ...

The Economic Value of Trust

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Trust can be difficult to define and measure, but there is wide-spread agreement that high levels of trust correlate with high levels of employee engagement.  RealTime Performance has done considerable work helping companies define values and identify competencies, and in almost every instance, establishing and building trust is designated a critical component for leadership development and organizational culture.  This result holds up across all industries, job functions and leadership levels...

What is the Biggest Challenge for Leaders?

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 The following is the second in a series of five questions and corresponding answers on leadership.  (See question #1: How to Motivate and Inspire Others? ) 2. What is the biggest challenge in leading an organization? Communication is the most important and most challenging task when leading an organization.    Leaders must communicate organizational goals and strategies, especially during difficult times,  but there is also the need to communicate at a personal level with everyone in the...

WolframAlpha: The Answer Engine

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When I was studying mathematics at the University of Puget Sound in the early 1990s my professors were extremely excited about a newly purchased, and quite expensive software program called Mathematica.  There were only a few copies available to our department, but when I got my hands on one I immediately recognized the power of Mathematica as a teaching tool.  You could type in a complex function, press a button and voila, there was a graphic representation in two or three dimensions.  Then...

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