Next Level Blog

MARCH 30, 2021

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to coach the members of a couple of different corporate senior leadership teams. The coaching approach I use for leadership teams is a lot like the one I use for individual leaders. Both she and her colleagues report that this proactive start to her week is making a positive difference.

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Management Chief Operating Officer Short-term Report 166

Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

This exec loved my client and compared him quite favorably to his predecessor who, the exec said, regularly “inspired his team to underperformance.”. The essence of his answer was that the predecessor leader didn’t set high enough expectations for his team and failed to even follow through on the low bar that he did set.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 9, 2019

That doesn’t just apply to other people; it applies to you and your team too. If everything has to be perfect, not much gets done and the growth of your team stagnates. By following these steps, you’ll get more done and grow your team. Is your direct involvement as a manager really going to make it that much better?

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 23, 2024

This is the time of the year when I spend a day with my C-suite clients to give them some space to get up on the balcony to consider what success will look like 12 months from now and what they and their teams need to focus on to make those outcomes more likely. How do you want to leverage and enable your leadership team this year?

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

That one was about why leaders should be decisive in exiting high performing but totally disruptive members of their team. In every case, the leader said their biggest lesson learned was they should have made key changes in their senior leadership team sooner than they did. Click headline to continue.

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Team Talent Management Leadership Development 239

Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 4, 2019

Here are three action steps you can take to manage your workload so you have time for unexpected problems or issues. It’s really not a big investment of your time if you look at it that way but the return on that investment can be huge for you, your team and your organization.

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Management How To Crisis Engineering 143

Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

For instance, you can work really hard to build a great team and then things change. If you’re the team leader, you have to be consistent in attending to the dynamics to keep the team performing at a high level. Because the team is always changing in one fashion or another, that work never ends.

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Fashion Executive Coaching Team Planning 256

Next Level Blog

JULY 11, 2023

One of my sources of entertainment on a recent trip to Los Angeles was watching a traffic cop masterfully manage a very busy Melrose Avenue intersection while a work crew replaced the stop lights. In the short run, you scale yourself by developing a team of traffic controllers who keep things moving in their own intersections.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 5, 2021

A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation with a group of senior managers when one of them told a story that put what has come to be known as The Great Resignation in sharp relief. The exhaustion and burnout have an impact on everyone – executives, managers and team members alike. Why does it matter? Where do you fit in?

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 21, 2012

While fans of Tim Tebow will likely vehemently disagree, I’d have to put Denver Broncos GM John Elway in the running for manager of the year. And not just NFL manager of the year; anybody’s manager of the year. Let me be the first to acknowledge that I enjoyed Tebowmania and Tebow Time as much as anyone. As I wrote.

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 4, 2024

I started doing yoga in late 2010 because a knowledgeable friend of the family encouraged me to take it up to help manage the multiple sclerosis I had been diagnosed with in 2009. The leadership team lays out a plan and goes to work. Our friend was right. And, for me, that’s become a metaphor for life.

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Class Politics Tips Planning 196

Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Your manager wants to give you some performance feedback and wraps it up in so much blah, blah, blah that you aren’t really sure what the message is or what you’re supposed to do with it. If you’re a manager (or a coach for that matter) delivering tough feedback is sometimes part of the job. We’ve all been there.

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How To Executive Coaching Construction Resistance 246

Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2022

You and your team have to do a great job on your current scope before you’ll be asked to take on a bigger scope. Speak for the work : And the way that anyone is going to know that you and your team are doing a great job is if you speak for the work. Nine times out of ten, the best advocate is going to be your executive manager.

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 12, 2021

One of the things I’ve seen a lot of leaders struggling with during this extended period of leading from home is how to stay on top of all the communications they have to do with different stakeholders – their team members, their managers, their peers, other colleagues and external partners.

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Retail Content Information Tips 241

Next Level Blog

MARCH 19, 2020

The first thing I’m sure of is that effective leadership in this new era begins with effective self-management. edition of The Next Level in 2018, I summarized a lot of what I’d learned in the 6 years since writing the 2 nd edition with three leadership imperatives: Manage Yourself Leverage Your Team Engage Your Colleagues.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 24, 2011

If you’ve got someone on your team who is clearly a star but regularly disrupts the chi and makes life difficult for others on the team, you’ve got a tough problem as a manager. So, how do you manage the superstar that has a penchant for stirring things up? What have you learned about managing difficult superstars?

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Blog Tips Management Executive Coaching 180

Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Over the course of this year, I’m going to develop the agendas and facilitate around a dozen strategic offsites for C-Suite executives and their senior leadership teams. With all that experience, I’ve learned a lot about how to develop and write an agenda that gets a leadership team engaged to create meaningful insights and outcomes.

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Development How To Leadership Participative 177

Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Ever had a manager who told you they had an “open-door policy?” The open-door policy implies that your team members or colleagues can come to you with anything. Being available is mainly a function of time management. Available leaders: Put team members and colleagues on their list of priorities. So, how are you doing?

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

There was a period in my blogging career when I created a side gig as a vocal critic of former Washington NFL football team owner, Dan Snyder. The impact he had on the Washington team and fans over the years was truly sad. Then, last year, a minor miracle occurred when Snyder was finally forced to sell the team.

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Next Level Blog

MAY 7, 2019

As I’ve written here before , one of my favorite games to play with high potential managers and executives is called, “What’s on Your T-Shirt?” I position it as a “no-fabulous-prizes” competition for the team that comes up with the T-shirt slogans that generate the most laughs in the room. We get it done; but can’t stop doing it.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 11, 2018

These sets of behaviors break down into three primary components of executive presence: personal presence, team presence and organizational presence. For Team Presence, the imperative is to leverage your team by shifting how you use your time and attention and coaching your team members to succeed in bigger roles.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 6, 2019

I didn’t last long there and a year later was back in my home state of West Virginia leading a small team of researchers in the Governor’s economic development office. It wasn’t a perfect approach and didn’t get me nominated for leader of the year, but it was a pretty good start for my first real management job.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 2, 2021

Speaking for the work doesn’t mean tooting your own horn; it means putting the work your team is doing into a context that senior leaders care about and then sharing what you’ve accomplished, the obstacles you’ve overcome, what’s in the way and any help you need in getting to next steps. Your manager or executive likely isn’t any different.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

At the same time, even though she’s only been there a few months, she’s already making a major impact in raising the bar for her team, prompting them to think and act in new ways and bringing a fresh energy to an organization that has been set in its ways and needs to innovate. It may be for you or someone on your team as well.

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Next Level Blog

AUGUST 9, 2012

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with a group of senior executives from the U.S. Department of Defense and a few other Federal agencies to engage in some “applied science” around leading at the next level. It was a great group with a lot of perspective and some fascinating stories to share. Click headline to continue.

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Team How To Execution Team Building 232

Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

Fortunately, Marc Effron and Miriam Ort are here to save us from ourselves with their book, One Page Talent Management. I like their book a lot because their process of applying some basic design principles to common processes is one that has application far beyond the realm of talent management and human resources.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 12, 2021

Sometimes it comes up with a manager who wants advice on how to answer that question from an ambitious team member. Your manager should be in a position to advocate for you but they’re not going to make the decision by themselves. I’ve been in a lot of conversations about that question over the years.

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How To Committee Human Resources Executive Coaching 130

Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

So, one way to come up with the kinds of behaviors that will shape the culture you need to succeed is to spend some time answering a couple of questions with your colleagues on the senior leadership team. However you show up as a leader is completely predictive of how your team will show up.

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 26, 2021

Like a lot of organizations, this company has a senior leadership team conference at the beginning of the year – either fiscal or calendar – to lay out their themes, goals and plans for the next 12 months. Part one is that the best organizations have an annual management calendar that drives planning, assessment and accountability.

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Leadership How To Performance Review Learning-by-Doing 139

Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 30, 2019

Some of the more common answers include things like goal setting, developing the team, coaching, performance management and setting the organizational climate. My contribution to the list is “If you’re the leader, you’re the chief marketing officer for your team.” What is your team doing that tracks with what they care about?

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Marketing How To Team Goal 146

Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Yesterday morning, before delivering a workshop on how to lead and live at your best , I had the privilege of sitting in as a roomful of high-potential managers shared what they’ve learned so far during their company’s multi-month leadership development program. That’s his team’s job. Of course, it’s not.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 19, 2019

What you can do, however, is manage your week in a way that gives you the best chance of living and leading at your best. We were talking about time management strategies and she shared how she organizes her week. Finally, I asked her what she’s usually doing Monday through Wednesday and she immediately answered, “I coach my team.”

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How To Energy Workshop Follow-up 143

Next Level Blog

MARCH 31, 2020

That can lead to some predictable conflict-management problems that you can avoid with a little foresight and creativity. For instance, let’s say you’re finding yourself at odds with a colleague about how your teams should coordinate and work together during the crisis. Think back to that distant time of February 2020 and earlier.

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Crisis Executive Coaching Engineering Participative 178

Next Level Blog

MAY 12, 2020

Right now, we’re dealing with the beginning of Phase 2 which is what the late, great change management guru, William Bridges, described as “the neutral zone.” In his classic book, Managing Transitions , Bridges pointed out that there are three phases of major change – the ending, the neutral zone, and the beginning.

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Learning-by-Doing Uncertainty Conference Definition 244

Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Keep Them in the Loop : Pattern recognition should be a team sport. If you’re the executive leader, make it a habit to engage your team members in a feedback loop where they feel encouraged and confident to regularly share their observations and insights about the patterns they’re seeing.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

Building on the new reality of distributed work, I think we’ll see an acceleration in the move towards agile, flexible work teams that cut across functions. That’s not just true for influencing your boss or managing up; it’s also true for your peers and team members. Involvement is a key component of influence.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 29, 2021

And, for the organization, the ahead of the curve communications make big change initiatives easier to manage and go more smoothly. As a result, the colleagues feel valued by and appreciative of my client.

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