Team

Today’s Reading “Why Leaders Play Chicken” comes to us via the HBR Blog Network and is from the pen of Ron Ashkenas.  Ashkenas is managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and author of the recent book, Simply Effective. In this piece, Ashkenas reminds us of the game of chicken that most of us played when we […]

Today’s reading comes from Anthony Tjan’s Harvard Business Review Blog.  Tian is CEO of the venture capital firm Cue Ball and is a recognized business builder.  The piece “Six Habits of a Talent Magnet,” which he wrote with Tsun-yan Hsiehm chair of the LinHart Group, can be found at <http://bit.ly/e5VSWy>. In the piece, the authors […]

A few weeks ago, one of the Harvard Business Review Blogs contained a short post by Linda Hill and Kent Lineback with the eye-catching title “The Words Many Managers Are Afraid to Say”.  Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor Business Administration at Harvard Business School.  Kent Lineback spent many years as a […]

In today’s reading “Thank You for Doing Your Job“, Whitney Johnson argues the value of saying thank you for routine work that contributes to the organization’s well being. Today, there is too little praise or appreciation voiced in our work environments.  In fact, I remember an organization that almost prided itself in being a “praise-free” […]

Have you ever been in a meeting to make a decision and before the context can be outlined, a few meeting participants have taken over and are going deeper and deeper into a solution based on a suggestion of one of the individuals?  Today’s reading, ”Go Broad Before You Go Deep,“ from Roger Schwarz’s Fundamental […]

Today’s reading, “Getting to the Heart of a Disagreement – and Resolving It,” is from Roger Schwarz’s Fundamental Change Newsletter and is found below. Disagreements are natural and inevitable, and their resolution is often crucial to moving forward.  So, how do you resolve them?  Do you focus on developing common ground?  Do you try to minimize the differences?  Do […]

Today’s reading, “Introverts:  The best Leaders for Proactive Employees“, is a piece by Carmen Nobel that appeared in a recent issue of the HBS Working Knowledge newsletter.  The article reports on the research of Francesca Gino, associate professor in the negotiations, organizations, and markets unit at the Harvard Business School. The key takeaway from Professor […]

Today’s reading is about a particular form of relationships called “clicking,” the phenomenon of rapidly connecting with another person, either in the work environment or in our personal lives.  The article “The Importance of Connecting with Colleagues” is a discussion by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman of their new book “Click:  The Magic of Instant Connections.” “Click” is […]

Today’s reading “If You Mess Up, Fess Up!” comes to us from Fast Company’s Expert Blog.  It’s author is Paul Glover, who founded the Glover Group, a management consulting firm focusing on improving workplace performance, after a long career as a labor/employment law attorney. Glover’s bottom line is very straight forward:  “Everyone makes mistakes.  It is how we deal […]

Today’s reading comes from an Amy Gallo posting How to Handle the Pessimist on Your Team to the Harvard Business Review BLOG.  Gallo is a writer, editor, and business consultant.  Her writing on management issues regularly appears in the HRB BLOG.  Earlier she was a consultant at Katztenbach Partners, a strategy and organization consulting firm where she was involved […]

This weeks Tuesday Reading “Getting You and Your Boss on the Same Communication Wavelength” comes to us from John Baldoni’s FastCompany blog and can be found at <http://bit.ly/6PbJvE> Baldoni notes that too often communications breaks down between manager and managed because they are not speaking the same language, even though they are both speaking English.  The […]

 Today’s reading is – IT Hiring:  How Thomson Reuters’ CIO Identifies Cultural Fit – a recent piece appearing in the CIO newsletter.  It features an interview of Kelli Crane, senior vice president and CIO of Thomson Reuters by Beth Ehrgott. As we have noted in the Leaders Program workshops, hiring the right people is as important a […]

MIT’s Leadership Center <http://mitleadership.mit.edu/> hosted Anne Mulcahy, then Xerox’s Chairman and CEO at the Sloan School’s Dean’s Innovative Leader Series in November 2006.  A synopsis of her remarks will be found at <http://mitleadership.mit.edu/r-mulcahy.php> and a video of the entire presentation is available at MIT World <http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/412/>. Mulcahy assumed the leadership of Xerox in 2001 when many […]

For over two decades William Bridges has helped organizations and individuals deal more effectively with change.  Today’s Tuesday Reading is a short piece by Bridges – “Reorientation + Renewal = Revitalization” <http://tinyurl.com/yet24s4> (download) – which focuses on how to revitalize a team after it goes through a difficult time of change. Bridges focuses on teams which […]

For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Q&A – “How Team Leaders Show Support – or Not”– with HBS faculty member Teresa Anabile. Though from 2004, the findings remain valid.  Professor Anabile’s research points to two key concepts for leaders who want to gain their staff’s confidence: 1.  Perceptions […]

Well-integrated, high-performing teams, teams that “click,” is the subject of today’s Tuesday Reading – “How Leaders Get Their Teams To ‘Click’”  by Phil Harken.  Such teams never lose slight of their goals and are largely self-sustaining.  They often seem to take on a life of their own.  Studies by the European Centre for Organizational Research show that […]

Everyone who has participated in the ITLP has had the opportunity to look back on their career and note the leadership lessons they have learned.  Today’s Tuesday Reading is a leadership journey in the form of an interview.  Recently, Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Airlines, was interviewed for the New York Time’s April 26, […]

John Maxwell, a very prolific writer on leadership, is the author of our Tuesday Reading for today:  “Influence:  Connecting with People”. Maxwell’s thesis is straightforward;  … “until leaders learn the art of connection, their influence remains minimal.”  To help us make connections, he offers eight practical steps: 1.  Don’t take people for granted. 2.  Possess a difference-maker mindset. 3.  Initiate movement toward […]

For today’s reading we turn to advice from José Carlos Eiras, former CIO of DHL-Express US and also European CIO and Global Services Information Officer at General Motors, found in “Practical Advice for CIOs Struggling to Survive in Tough Times“. After talking briefly about the choices IT leaders struggling with tough times — either ”hunker […]

In the current issue of Fortune Magazine, Jim Collins is interviewed by Fortune Senior Writer Jennifer Reingold for the article “How Great Companies Turn Crisis Into Opportunity”. Collins has spent much of his career in understanding how companies succeed.  For the past several years, he has been focusing on how successful companies navigate through turbulent times.  Much […]