August, 2011

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The Downside of Passion

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myatt , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. Review any list of positive leadership traits and “ passion &# will undoubtedly rank near the top – rightly so. In most cases passion is an asset capable of carrying you through tough times, sharpening your perspective, revealing purpose, and helping you succeed in the face of overwhelming odds.

Advice 419
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10 Sticky Note Reminders For The Busy Leader (Plus One from the Heart)

Terry Starbucker

For many leaders out there (myself included), sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in a day. Work piles up, deadlines loom, milestones are passing, folks are tugging at you from all different directions- and guess what suffers. Our leadership. Unless we give ourselves enough time to climb back up to 10,000 feet from ground level, all those things we’ve learned about great leadership can get pushed into the recesses of our conscious mind, and thus, we become very task orientated,

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Do You Know What Farm Kids Know about Leadership?

Lead Change Blog

Posted in Best of Blogs Series Leadership Development Self Leadership I grew up on a farm. Yep, that’s me on the right, at 5-years old, working with my father. Notice the stripe-on-stripe outfit. I dressed myself that day. And that’s not the only thing I did that day… Farm kids learn responsibility early. I would say I “added value&# as early as age 5.

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New Research: Friendly Workplace = Longer Life

Michael Lee Stallard

During our speeches and workshops we conclude the section where we present research from a diverse fields of knowledge that makes the case for connection to thrive at work and in life by stating: “ connection = life&# whereas “disconnection = death &# (we point out that this applies to both individuals and organizations). Now we have additional research about the effect of connection on individuals in the workplace to prove it.

Stress 312
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Reduce Bias in Hiring: Structured Interview Questions for Employers

Structured interview questions are a valuable tool for reducing bias in hiring. They help: Ensure all candidates are asked the same questions in the same way Level the playing field so all candidates have a fair chance of being successful Improve credibility, reliability, and validity Download the guide to get the most out of your interview questions!

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Credibility: How Leaders Gain it and Lose It

Leading Blog

Credibility is the foundation of leadership. Unfortunately, many people today do not trust their leaders. “Many wonder if there are any leaders left who have the strength of character to sustain their trust,” write Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner in Credibility: How Leaders Gain it and Lose It – Why People Demand It. While there is no single reason for it, “there is the gnawing sense in many corridors that leaders are not competent to handle the tough challenges; that they are not telling the truth;

Follow-up 285
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15 Ways to tell if someone is Arrogant or Humble

Leadership Freak

Arrogant people say they believe in humility but their life says they believe in arrogance. Humble people speak the truth. The temptation to temper the truth and say what others want to hear, for example, is nearly universal. If you’ve found someone who speaks the truth give them a raise. I’ve seen people negotiate how [.].

Examples 279

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Why You Should Treat A Business Problem Like Horse Manure

Terry Starbucker

My first real “boss&# was a cantankerous 75-year old man who happened to be worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, all earned from a starting base of zero. In other words, they guy knew how to make a business successful. And yet, of all the lessons he gave me, it was a simple little story he used to tell me about every month or so that has left the biggest mark on me.

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Choosing to Trust

Lead Change Blog

Posted in Leadership Development One of the most honoring gifts we can give someone is choosing to grant them our trust. The choice to grant trust is not the same thing as having a default position of trusting people until they prove they can’t be trusted. Choosing to trust someone requires that you mindfully choose to build trust with [.] Choosing to Trust.

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Kicking Butt: Apple and U2

Michael Lee Stallard

Apple is now the most valuable company in the world in terms of market capitalization and U2’s recent tour just became the highest grossing of all time, crushing the previous record held by the Rolling Stones. Learn about Apple’s remarkable rise in market cap in this New York Times article and learn about U2’s claim as the greatest band of all time in this article from the Atlantic magazine’s website.

Workshop 307
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Five Signs That Your HR Chief is Trouble

Next Level Blog

With a shout out to the folks at SmartBrief on Leadership for pointing it out, I recommend to you a deeply reported article in Fortune magazine about how and why Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler was pushed. Please click the headline to read the whole story.

Magazine 277
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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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Getting Leaders to Change

Great Leadership By Dan

Guest post by John Mattone , Business Author, Senior Faculty Member of Talent Management Alliance and President of Executive Development Associates (EDA), a global leadership consulting firm that specializes in executive assessment, development, and coaching. An Exclusive Excerpt from John Mattone’s New Book, Stealth Leadership: Using Assessment & Coaching to Propel Your Leaders & Organization to Greatness (to be released December 2011) As I work with executives and high potentials, my p

Loyalty 256
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Leadership & Perception

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myatt , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. Does perception matter? We’ve all heard the saying “perception is reality,” but is it true? Does perception never, rarely, sometimes, or always equal reality? While I long ago reached the conclusion that perception does in fact matter, it may not be for the reasons that you might think. I have found that the majority of people tend to be myopic with regard to perception…they understand their own perceptions, but are quite often either ignorant o

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Mythbusting The 6 “Can’ts” Of Personal Leadership

Terry Starbucker

In my leadership journey, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to figure out the “right&# way to lead. Of course, there have been the bosses, the mentors, the books, the articles, the unsolicited advice, and all the other outside sources of learning, but I have to say that the best way to figure it all out was to actually DO it. Because by doing it, you can truly use the intuition you were born with, and go in the directions that YOU believe in.

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Accepting the Tension Between Vision and Reality

Lead Change Blog

Posted in Leadership Development Self Leadership Earlier this week I was visiting with another Lead Change Contributing Author and Entrepreneur, Shawn Murphy (@shawmu & LeadChange profile). Our conversation quickly reminded each of us that we are not alone as we experience some natural tension between our vision and our reality: How do you balance faith and ownership?

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5 Ways to Improve DE&I in the Workplace

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical for an organization’s success. And companies that take bold action to help ensure an inclusive workplace will win every time. Discover how your company can create a culture that celebrates DE&I while achieving higher revenue and growth.

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10 Ways to become the Leader People Follow

Leadership Freak

Yesterday I met with two new leaders in my organization. (I use “my” loosely) It was a get to know you and a where are you going pow-wow. At the end of our exchange I asked, “What did you get from our conversation?” They replied, “You helped us have purpose during our first weeks of [.].

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What I Learned on a Coast Guard Cutter

Next Level Blog

For the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity each Fall to talk leadership with the newly promoted admirals of the U.S. Coast Guard and their Senior Executive Service counterparts from the. Please click the headline to read the whole story.

Execution 274
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Ethical Grey Areas: Our Choices Define Us

Leading in Context

Grey Areas in Leading Ethically We see plenty of information about lying, cheating, stealing and other obvious ethical violations. It is more difficult to know what to do when we encounter behaviors that fall into ethical grey areas, particularly in term of relationships with other people.

Ethics 254
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Greatness & Tragedy

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myat t , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. Few things highlight great acts of selflessness and heroism more than tragedy. This weekend’s helicopter crash in Afghanistan was a horrific loss for the families of our fallen warriors, but also for our nation as a whole. The men who perished in the crash were in fact our nation’s best.

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No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Drama, End Entitlement and Drive Big Results

Speaker: Cy Wakeman, M.S., CSP, President, Reality-Based Leadership

Most HR leadership philosophies are grounded in two completely faulty assumptions — “change is hard” and “engagement drives results.” Those beliefs have inspired expensive attempts to keep change from being disruptive to employees. What these engagement programs actually do is create and reinforce feelings of victim-hood and leave employees unprepared to adapt to real changes that are necessary for the health and profitability of their enterprises.

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My Interview With Yoda, Social Media Guru and Jedi Warrior

Terry Starbucker

Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, I had a rare chance to chat with Yoda, who, it can now be revealed, has been one of my favorite Social Media mentors. It’s a little known fact that in addition to his important duties as a Jedi Master, Yoda has been behind the scenes training many of us in the ways of Social Media. It’s a treat to be able to share with you just a little of his wisdom here.

Media 322
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In Leading, There is No Substitute For Human Connection

Lead Change Blog

Posted in Best of Blogs Series Leadership Development One of my clients had recently started experimenting with how he responded to customer requests. His customers were co-workers —people internal to the company. He had been finding himself increasingly annoyed and impatient at their requests, and he wanted to change that. To his credit, he knew most of the annoyance he felt was simply [.

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Seasoned Leaders Have Balance

Great Leadership By Dan

Here's a guest post by Paul Thornton, a Great Leadership regular: To produce healthy plants it takes the right amount of water, sunlight, fertilizer, and care. Too much water or too little sunlight may hurt your plants. The best gardeners learn through experience and reflection what flowers need to grow and develop. In a similar way, seasoned leaders know what it takes to help people and organizations achieve their potential.

Kaplan 251
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You Can Lead Your Way into Leadership

Leadership Freak

Much of my leadership career I had a leadership title but did little leading. I didn’t understand leadership. Stop aspiring to become a leader its a waste of time. Leaders don’t aspire to leadership – they lead wherever they are. Always see yourself as a leader even when you’re following. All leaders follow. Leaders don’t [.].

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Innovation: Five Signs You Might Be Faking It

Every company wants to be a leader in innovation, but how can you tell if your company is really innovating or just going through the motions? See the 5 signs you might be faking innovation and what to do if you are.

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Learning is More Than a Spectator Sport

Persuasive Powerhouse

Years of attending training programs where I sat in a chair and listened to PowerPoint presentations had made me weary of such events. After the training was finished, I’d head back to the office and the material I was given in the program would sit on my desk for a week or two as I got involved in the day to day craziness. I might tell the staff about what I’d learned but eventually, the books would go up on the shelf and gather dust.

Sports 252
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10 Steps to Creating a Talent Advantage

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myatt , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. Creating a talent advantage begins with smart hiring. That said, it never ceases to amaze me at the number of people who are charged with hiring who possess absolutely no skill at doing so. While I rarely meet a CEO who is completely comfortable with turning the hiring process over to HR, most of them still seem to acquiesce and do exactly that…&# Who should do the hiring?

Insurance 353
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So What Makes You Think You Can Be A Leader?

Terry Starbucker

I was 27 when I got a call from an executive search company about a job in Los Angeles. “Would you be interested in the chief operating job for a cable company with 400,000 customers?&#. Huh? I was an Audit Manager at a public accounting firm. I managed several jobs, and oversaw 5-10 staff accountants, but that was the extent of my leadership experience.

Hotels 304
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Compromise: Informed, Intentional and Productive

Lead Change Blog

Posted in Leadership Development I didn’t get the memo. Did you? You know, the one that says compromise is negative and should be avoided? Somewhere along the line, compromise (defined by Merriam-Webster as a settlement of differences by consent reached through mutual concessions, one of those “playing well in the sandbox” skills my mom taught me) got confused with [.

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Tough Comp Conversations: A Guide For Doing Them Right

Speaker: Rusty Lindquist, VP Strategic HR Insights at Bamboo HR

Compensation can be tricky, few things carry as much emotional weight as comp. And with the increased transparency in the market, combined with our collective propensity to rate ourselves against others, the frequency of these very difficult conversations is increasing. In this webinar, we will deconstruct some of the psychology around comp. We’ll take an analytic look at comp’s role in the employee experience, and then we’ll get really tactical with guidance on very specific compensation conver

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“Fun” at Work

Great Leadership By Dan

With all due respect to Google, Zappos, and these guys , here are 11 real-life examples I’ve seen managers try to force their employees to lighten up and have some “fun” at work: 1. Creation of a “fun committee”. There are a few committees that I would recommend avoiding if you can: safety, quality, employee satisfaction, social, and the dreaded fun committee.

Committee 243
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Working Toward Working Less

Leadership Freak

The reason you don’t get more done is you’re doing too much. We tie our worth to being busy. The busier we are the more important we feel. There is some truth to the idea that being busy indicates we are valuable to others. Perpetual busyness, however, is more a sickness than an indication of [.].

Stress 253
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4 Lessons On Team-Building I Learned From My Garden

Tanveer Naseer

As a gardener, I enjoy this time in the summer because you get to step back from your garden and appreciate what all that hard work you did in the spring and early summer has given rise to. This time of the year is also an ideal time to review how the plants are faring in your garden so you can anticipate what changes might need to be made in the upcoming fall or spring.

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10 Steps to Productive Meetings

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myatt , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. If you’ve ever watched an episode of NBC’s “The Office” you know exactly what unproductive meetings look like. The tragic news is many real world meetings too closely resemble a fictional Michael Scott get together. Stories of “death by meeting&# are a well represented part of corporate folklore for good reason – unplanned, unnecessary, uninspired, or otherwise unproductive meetings are a colossal waste of time and resources.

Products 345
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The HR Leader’s Survival Guide

HR leaders drowning in paperwork struggle to meet C-suite's strategic expectations. Burnout and high turnover plague the field, with 95% feeling overwhelmed. This guide explores how the right tools can free HR from admin tasks and empower them to become the strategic leaders they’re meant to be.