Sat.Aug 13, 2011 - Fri.Aug 19, 2011

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Leadership and Blame

N2Growth Blog

By Mike Myatt , Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth. In the world of leadership where the traits of accountability and personal responsibility are so highly regarded, I have one question? What’s with all the finger pointing? One of my pet peeves is coming across leaders who think they’re always right, and that any problem or challenge that arises must clearly be the fault of someone else.

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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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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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Hacking the Creative Process

Leading Blog

While creativity is associated with artists, creativity is really part of life. It is how we shape our work into something meaningful. Benjamin Franklin put it this way: “To cease to think creatively is but little different from ceasing to live.” You might not think of yourself as being creative, but if you are expected to solve problems, strategize and come up with new ideas, then you are required to be creative.

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Recruit and Retain New Blue-Collar Talent

Blue-collar jobs have a branding problem. One company, GEON, partnered with Paycor to find the solution. Learn how to attract, engage, and retain blue-collar employees, helping them build meaningful careers – and support your company’s goals.

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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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The August 2011 Leadership Development RoundTable Challenge: A Coaching Dilemma

Persuasive Powerhouse

Welcome to the August Round Table! How it works: each month, a core member of The Roundtable will introduce a leadership challenge and solicit a 200 word maximum answer from the other core members plus one special guest. Readers can then contribute their own answers and/or vote for their favorite below. Voting results will be published here next week.

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What to Ask the Person in the Mirror

Leading Blog

While we might like to think otherwise, here is a fact about successful leaders: Successful leaders go through significant periods of time in which they feel confused, discouraged, and unsure of themselves and their decisions. They feel as if they should be somewhere else, doing something else. And un successful leaders go through the same thing. The difference, says Harvard professor Robert Kaplan, is “how they deal with these periods of confusion and uncertainty.

Kaplan 282
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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 239
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Crisis Management Essentials

Tanveer Naseer

The following is a guest post by Daniel Diermeier. Daniel is the IBM Professor of Regulation and Competitive Practices at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the director of the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship. Daniel’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Week, and Newsweek.

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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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Wearing Yoga Pants to Business Meetings (and Other Style Tips for Women)

Women on Business

Guest Post by Natalie Peace. Personal style and business savvy: it can be tough to walk the line between both. If your own style is bold, flashy and unique, the last thing you want to do is break out the grey polyester 2-piece skirt suit and sensible low-heeled pumps. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many women do, advised by people who say you need to dress like a female version of a bland male executive, if you want to succeed in the business world.

Tips 210
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The Biggest Barrier to Collaborative Problem Solving

Kevin Eikenberry

This could be a very short article, because the biggest barrier to collaborative problem solving is found by looking at the word problem backwards: melborp. Do you see it? The biggest barrier is me. Or you. Or whoever makes the problem about them, their agenda or their solution. Which means that we, too often, approach [.].

Article 193
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Build your Life and Leadership Through Listening

Leadership Freak

I’m a listener that used listening to control people. If I ask the questions, I’m controlling the conversation. If I’m controlling the conversation, I’m controlling you. Does that make you uncomfortable? It should. It took me years to realize I used listening as a protective devise to keep people at arm’s length. Aubrey Hepburn captured [.].

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Coffee House Book Review – “Seeing Red Cars” By Laura Goodrich

Tanveer Naseer

One of the common themes I’ve written about on my blog is the key role focus plays in our ability to be successful. But how many of us are actually focusing on what we want to accomplish, as opposed to focusing more on the things we’re trying to avoid? That’s the premise behind the book “ Seeing Red Cars – Driving Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization to a Positive Future ” by Laura Goodrich.

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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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There is an “I” in Conflict

Persuasive Powerhouse

I’m from the Midwest – born, raised, and a “lifer” here. It’s a lovely place to live and work. But for many years I had no idea that there was an actual “culture” in the Midwest. Since then, I’ve come to recognize that the culture includes (as all cultures do) some things that are life-enhancing and some that aren’t.

Diversity 186
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Learning is Life

Kevin Eikenberry

The famed psychologist and educator John Dewey (hey, he’s on a stamp) once wrote: “Education is not a preparation for life; Education is life itself.&# Questions to Ponder How do I view education? What do I do to educate myself? Action Steps Learn something new today. Repeat that action tomorrow. And the next day (and [.].

Education 190
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Stop the Madness Before its too Late

Leadership Freak

Image source: There are only three ways to get more time – eliminate, delegate, or accelerate. The hardest is elimination. Starting is more fun than stopping. Starting new things without stopping old things, however, is the reason your life is out of control. Five Ways to Stop the Madness: First, feel your frustrations; don’t bury [.].

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Do You Expect Growth for Your Woman-Owned Biz?

Women on Business

According to a report on Inc.com titled, Most Female Owners Expect Business to Grow , four in five women hope to grow their businesses over the next two years. On a personal note, I really feel that the terminology given in this report is misleading. As a small business owner, if asked, “Do you hope to grow your business in the next two years&# … of course I’m going to say an emphatic ‘YES!

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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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The Rainmaker 'Fab Five' Blog Picks of the Week

Sales Wolf Blog

Happy Monday! In the past week, I have read many insightful blogs by fellow bloggers in the HR, talent management, and leadership development blogosphere. I hope you enjoy the five fabulous blogs I chose to share with you. Have a great week! Kevin W. Grossman, Talent Culture: Keep the Engagement Lights On in Rolling Economic Blackout - If you have ever read my 'Fab Five' before, you know that I am very interested in employee engagement.

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The Indiana State Fair Tragedy – a Lesson in Leadership

Kevin Eikenberry

If you have been a reader of my newsletter, attended a workshop or know me in some way, you may know how much I love the Indiana State Fair. Clearly, many people know, based on the number of texts, emails and phone calls I have received after the stage collapse tragedy last night. We weren’t [.].

Workshop 181
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The Key that Unlocks Leadership

Leadership Freak

I’m consumed with power-packed brevity. Five words are better than thirteen. That sentence originally read, “If I can say something in five words rather than seven I’m excited.” Brevity by itself is meaningless, it needs content. In the spirit of brevity, what is the most important leadership quality/behavior of all? My number one quality is [.].

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The Lost Art of Killing Time

Next Level Blog

This past weekend, I had the great opportunity to spend a couple of days with the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Venturous on patrol in the Florida Straits. I’m organizing my thoughts, pictures. Please click the headline to read the whole story.

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10 HR Metrics to Track in 2024

Discover the power of HR metrics. Master recruiting, control skyrocketing labor costs, and reduce turnover rates. Get insights into key metrics like Time-to-Fill, Cost-per-Hire, and Turnover Rate. Equip your business for success in 2024.

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The Leper in the Room: Workplace Violence

Women on Business

As a business owner I have noticed that entrepreneurs talk about a range of topics and we share some pretty personal details; what doesn’t happen is the talk about violence. We speak about managing teams and dealing with problem performers, but we very rarely speak about what happens when those situations go horribly wrong. To get to the bottom of this I got some advice from subject matter expert, Felix Nater of Nater Associates Ltd on what to look out for and how to respond if an employee situa

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Social Boom: How to Master Business Social Media

Kevin Eikenberry

This week’s Resource Recommendation is Social Boom! How to Master Business Social Media by Jeffrey Gitomer. I’m pretty active on social media, especially when thinking about, as the book subtitle suggests, business social media. I bought this book for three reasons: 1. I respect the work of the author 2. I thought this book might [.].

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Be a Leader in Two Seconds

Leadership Freak

The more you’re respected the less you need to say and the more power you have. You can earn respect while you’re speaking if you speak with compassion, integrity, and competence. People feel compassion when your words align with their needs. People see integrity when they believe you’re speaking for the good of others. People [.].

Power 203
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Communicating product vision

Lead on Purpose

Communication has changed significantly in the past several years. Twitter, Facebook and other social media have driven personal interaction to short, succinct statements that force us to be brief and to the point. One of my colleagues on the engineering team recently told me “if you can’t write your spec in 140 characters, I can’t implement it.” Though I’m sure he said it in jest, he got me to thinking about effective communication.

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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.

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To Coach or Not to Coach? The August Leadership Development Challenge

Next Level Blog

It’s time for this month’s Leadership Development Roundtable Challenge. Executive coach and blogger Mary Jo Asmus has written up a “ripped from today’s headlines,” case involving a manager who says. Please click the headline to read the whole story.

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Inbound Marketing: Great Read for Inexperienced Online Marketers

Women on Business

I just recently finished reading Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. Overall, it was a pretty good book and I recommend it frequently to my clients that don’t have any experience in marketing their business online. With that being said, it’s not a book I would recommend to those who already have a strong basic knowledge of what it takes to get their business found online.

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Transforming Chit Chat into Productivity

Leadership Freak

Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell’s Soup (2001 to 2011) knows how to stay on task; all successful leaders do. He’s setting up his office in Philadelphia after retiring from Campbell’s on July 31. When he picked up the phone, he was unpacking boxes. I asked him what was happening in his life. Doug has a [.].

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The Innovator's DNA

CEO Blog

We are having a lovely rain day today. The gardens need it. I read a great book by Clay Christensen , Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen called The Innovator's DNA - Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Christensen is one of the great thinkers of our time. Start by reading his book - Innovators Dilemma where he explains what disruptive innovation is.

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How to Write OKRs: 45 Effective Examples

Discover how to align everyday employee priorities with company goals. Many companies are embracing objectives and key results (OKRs) as the best practice for committing to goals and following through. Objectives are outcomes that reflect current company priorities. Each employee should write OKRs that roll up to larger company goals. Show employees how they contribute to the larger mission.