tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-352900 2009-11-09T06:02:00-06:00 (c) Copyright 2004-2009 Arceil Leadership Ltd. All rights reserved.If it's workplace engagement you need, you are in the right place. Minding Gaps, a little blog for leaders and led alike, is here to close the gaps between the potential and the reality of your leadership for engagement in the workplace. We'll show you how to build real and enduring strategic engagement by enhancing the way you think and talk about your organization's purpose, vision, direction, goals, and priorities. Minding Gaps is written by Thomas J. Lee, an authority on leadership communication and workplace engagement. TypePad tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6630779970b 2009-11-09T06:02:00-06:00 2009-11-09T07:42:59-06:00

Even nominally work-related activity can be unproductive. More than half of all workers said they took their own time to fix a colleague’s substandard work, and almost as many pointed to dealing with internal politics and waiting for a colleague to finish his part on a joint project

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/by-the-numbers-the-time-suck.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a65b3a67970b 2009-11-06T05:35:16-06:00 2009-11-06T13:04:57-06:00

To successfully introduce a new strategy or roll out a new initiative, management must go from the big picture to the little picture. This is employee communication writ small. It is a necessary step for any management team introducing change. It requires serious thought and the involvement of front-line managers, because an employee’s boss is in a position to determine what gets done and how.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/translate-strategy-to-specific-day-to-day-behaviors.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e2011571f0cae7970b 2009-11-05T15:26:34-06:00 2009-11-09T07:45:15-06:00

A little blog with big ideas, Minding Gaps strives to build strategic engagement by enhancing the way that corporations and other organizations think and talk about their purpose, vision, direction, goals, and priorities. The more clarity, credibility, and community you can bring to these matters, the more engagement you will see. We will unpack and work through this challenge with you. You'll like the result: change and breakthrough performance that are simple, natural, foolproof, and almost inevitable.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/welcome-1.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6aa797d970c 2009-11-05T02:16:00-06:00 2009-11-06T11:37:50-06:00

Some companies will assume that what they already know is sufficient for them to prevail in the future. Other companies will assume that what they know isn’t sufficient, that they need to learn something they do not already know, to succeed. Which company would you invest your own money in? The self-satisfied company? Or the curious company?

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/the-need-for-endless-curiosity.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6acd50e970c 2009-11-04T05:46:00-06:00 2009-11-07T17:47:54-06:00

Lou Gerstner, who was so successful in turning around IBM in the 1990s, often remarked that nothing in business is more important than focus. A company's focus must be sharp. It must be true. It must be sustained. It must be robust and relevant. Above all, it must be shared and widely embraced.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/strategic-focus-is-the-foundational-work-of-leadership.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6acab7c970c 2009-11-04T00:33:00-06:00 2009-11-05T12:53:33-06:00

Typically overlooked or undervalued, front-line supervisors are a critical link in the execution of any business strategy, change initiative, operating priority, or rebranding campaign. Fully 25 percent of all employee engagement is driven by front-line supervisors. Yet far more often than you may assume, front-line supervisors are not onboard with a strategy or initiative, and they don’t believe it will last more than a few months. They feel safe dismissing it and ignoring it. Consequently, business strategies and initiatives are often DOA long before senior management realizes.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/life-support-for-your-vital-front-line-managers.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a689de8f970c 2009-11-03T04:06:00-06:00 2009-10-29T18:30:00-05:00

The single most powerful means of communication you have—far and away more commanding than any words you speak or write—is the decision. Yes, that decision. This decision, now.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/the-single-most-powerful-means-of-communication-you-have.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a697da39970c 2009-11-02T02:23:46-06:00 2009-11-08T11:13:15-06:00

Quality in business operations is not yet part of an enduring cultural ethic. According to research by McKinsey & Co., the global consulting firm, 67 percent of companies report that their quality efforts have “stalled or fallen short” of yielding real improvement. That figure comports with my own conversations with business leaders, few of whom are satisfied with their own company’s progress on quality.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/by-the-numbers-the-stalemate-on-quality.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a689d0be970c 2009-10-30T05:27:00-05:00 2009-10-29T06:35:23-05:00

Transformations fail in large part because of the absence, for all intents and purposes, of clear, compelling, credible, constructive communication. You cannot expect employees who lack awareness, understanding, and acceptance of a strategy to become enthusiastically committed to carrying out the strategy.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/why-change-fails.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a687f06e970c 2009-10-29T05:32:00-05:00 2009-11-06T17:40:58-06:00

Throughout any organization, both management and leadership—the work they represent, not positions in a hierarchy—are essential to the success and growth of an organization. They complement each other in ways little and large. But often the differences between them are lost amid the hustle and bustle of running an organization.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/management-versus-leadership-a-matter-of-purpose-and-style.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a67edb94970c 2009-10-28T00:23:00-05:00 2009-10-28T10:45:31-05:00

What is the role of curiosity in a business? How much does it matter? What is the value of it, and how much of success is dependent on it? In what ways do senior managers unintentionally quash the spirit of curiosity in their best people? How does that happen, and why might senior managers be blind or tone deaf to it?

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/query-thinking-about-curiosity.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6761835970c 2009-10-27T06:40:00-05:00 2009-10-25T19:45:42-05:00

To communicate a shared focus, you must first have a clear, well-honed strategic focus. You can't communicate what you don't have. Establishing and occasionally refining the strategic focus is the foundational work of leadership. It is absolutely imperative. Without focus, a company lacks a core, and it tends to jump from fad to fad. Its leaders often carry a long laundry list of initiatives and priorities—programs of the month—few or none of which have their earnest commitment.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/to-communicate-a-focus-you-must-first-have-a-focus.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a666f00f970c 2009-10-26T04:46:00-05:00 2009-10-21T16:53:52-05:00

According to research by Frank I. Luntz that appears in his new book, What Americans Really Want . . . Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears, Americans overwhelmingly prefer job satisfaction to economic prosperity. Some 84 percent of Americans say they would prefer making “a lot less money” in a job they love to the converse. Only 16 percent of Americans say they would prefer making “a lot more money” in a job they hate.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/by-the-numbers-the-tradeoff-between-satisfaction-and-income.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a66a030a970c 2009-10-23T05:49:00-05:00 2009-11-05T18:44:01-06:00

Here is a quotation attributed to John Quincy Adams that emphasizes the inspirational component of leadership. Too often, it seems to me, leaders settle for merely influencing others. That is a good start, but it is a small kind of leadership—necessary in exigencies, to be sure, but significantly less than the legacy of historic leaders: Churchill or Mandela or Lincoln, for example.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/quote-unquote-john-quincy-adams-on-inspirational-leadership.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a610798c970b 2009-10-22T05:27:00-05:00 2009-10-21T17:31:41-05:00

We don’t coin many words around Minding Gaps, but there’s a real need for this one: the metamessage. Messages are plainly important, but focusing on them exclusively as they’re stated plays a nasty trick on management. It is too easy, altogether too easy, for management to believe that a message as stated is a message if and as received, if and as understood, if and as believed, and if and as applied—when, in fact, it may not be any of those other things. The metamessage is the message as heard or not, as understood or not, as believed or not, as applied or not.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/beware-the-metamessage.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a60d5c0a970b 2009-10-21T12:33:00-05:00 2009-11-04T10:37:29-06:00

The questions about social media just keep coming. If your CEO or chairman asked, could you confidently answer any of these questions, let alone all of them? . . . Call us directly at +1.847.247.2241 or write to us at info@arceil.com for further information.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/answers-to-your-questions-on-social-media.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a600c5ea970b 2009-10-21T05:25:00-05:00 2009-10-20T06:31:15-05:00

In my years of consulting on organizational communication in mid-size and larger companies, I have seen all too many problems boil down to three broad categories of miscommunication: mixed messages, muddled messages, and mute messages.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/three-causes-of-poor-communication-in-companies.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5f58255970b 2009-10-20T00:19:00-05:00 2009-10-19T10:43:03-05:00

Riccardo Muti, the newly designated music director of the acclaimed Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was drawing one analogy in an interview yesterday morning, and it was a good one. I would like to borrow his analogy and apply it differently, to make a parallel point.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/what-do-you-have-in-common-with-riccardo-muti.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a64980ff970c 2009-10-19T01:15:00-05:00 2009-10-21T18:27:12-05:00

According to Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut by David Shenk, more than 3,000 discrete messages descend on each of us every day. A single message may be anything from an item in the news to a television or radio commercial to an email to a newspaper editorial to a whispered intimacy by that special someone. These messages account for more than 1,000,000 words—the equivalent of twelve to fifteen book-length novels—per week. Most alarming all, Data Smog was published in 1997, before the explosion of email and spam!

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/by-the-numbers-the-information-glut.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5eed95a970b 2009-10-17T06:14:26-05:00 2009-10-21T18:03:27-05:00

Each year, I am assigned a University of Chicago graduate student who has requested a mentor. We meet several times a year for lunch or coffee, and we exchange emails and take time for telephone conversations whenever the need arises. Our conversations cover the landscape. Sometimes I find myself offering advice on job interviews and resumes. Other times I just listen as a student vents about a professor whose grading curve is harsh. Still other times I push the student to think more broadly about his or her future or values or commitment.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/in-praise-of-mentoring.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a640cded970c 2009-10-16T05:38:00-05:00 2009-10-16T09:20:41-05:00

Too often in business, we hide behind the wrong personal pronouns. We lock ourselves into the singular, and we focus on our separateness. We get caught up in my this and I that. We hold you accountable, but not me. We blame him or them. It's long past time we change this. Our linguistic habits reflect an orientation of division, argument, and apportionment. It's not good for anyone. Organizations of any kind—profit or nonprofit, small or large, old or new—need cohesion and camaraderie. So let’s make a concerted effort to go beyond this little talk.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/first-person-plural.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5e8d7ff970b 2009-10-15T09:38:23-05:00 2009-10-28T07:13:09-05:00

In a typical meeting, when someone else has the floor, how much of your time is devoted to intense listening and how much to thinking what you will say next? If you had to choose between one extreme and the other, is your purpose in a meeting closer to learning and reaching a robust consensus or to directing and controlling the outcome?

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/query-where-is-your-head-in-a-typical-meeting.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5e57b20970b 2009-10-14T12:13:33-05:00 2009-10-15T21:14:13-05:00

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion. Occasionally, however, the quotation stands alone, as it does today.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/quote-unquote-charles-osgood-on-responsibility.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a6371aca970c 2009-10-13T09:14:39-05:00 2009-10-14T09:47:41-05:00

How can you tell if your organization is teetering toward disengagement? Here are four common warning signs. None of them will surprise you. If you notice even one, you should take action. If you don't act, you will soon notice another one, and then another one, and then eventually all four.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/four-warning-signs-of-disengagement.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a630735b970c 2009-10-12T07:12:00-05:00 2009-10-21T18:28:01-05:00

According to research by the British firm Melcrum, front-line supervisors drive fully 25 percent of all engagement. That makes supervisors the No. 1 driver of engagement. Nothing else accounts for more than supervisors.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/by-the-numbers-supervisors-are-the-no-1-drivers-of-engagement.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5d501c5970b 2009-10-11T13:52:39-05:00 2009-10-11T17:06:03-05:00

I happen to belong to a men’s group that meets for dinner every few weeks and discusses—well, life. We try to take things deep. Apart from a little chit-chat at the beginning, we avoid talking about sports, investments, business, the weather, women, vacations, music, food, wine, books, politics, movies, religion, cars, or hobbies. You may ask what else there is. Actually, lots.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/living-a-life-of-intentionality-or-not.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5c3dc44970b 2009-10-10T00:15:00-05:00 2009-10-15T20:42:52-05:00

That’s me. In the blue shirt. Waving to you. From the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. It was ten years ago today. The view from the summit is spectacular, as you can see for yourself. That little bluff a couple of miles behind my arm is the legendary El Capitan—its own face so very intimidating. From where I am sitting to the valley floor below is just about one mile, straight up and down. I climbed it in a single day, and I took the long way. It was pitch dark when I started around six o’clock in the morning, and it was pitch dark when I finished around eight in the evening.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/side-roads-an-incredible-hike-in-an-incredible-park.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5d4e935970b 2009-10-09T23:20:01-05:00 2009-10-18T12:53:44-05:00

At the risk of alienating some of you, I have to express astonishment at the selection of President Barack Obama to receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year. In my estimation, the president does not deserve this honor. He himself came close to saying as much this morning. He may deserve it some day—all of us can pray that every president does—but he doesn’t deserve it yet.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/a-truly-teachable-moment-in-humility.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5d00412970b 2009-10-09T00:15:00-05:00 2009-10-09T20:01:24-05:00

We are preparing to launch three research projects that may interest some of you. All will produce real-world solutions for real-world problems, but only the co-sponsors will benefit from them immediately. Each project will have a consortium of co-sponsors. Please consider co-sponsoring one, two, or all three.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/join-a-consortium-and-co-sponsor-high-roi-research-projects.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5cc1c11970b 2009-10-08T06:30:00-05:00 2009-10-16T08:53:41-05:00

This word engagement sticks in the craw of some people. What exactly does employee engagement mean? How do we recognize it? In a casual sense, engagement is all about an orientation to, and a preoccupation with, the success of an enterprise. However, there is no precise, standardized meaning for the term, and dictionaries don’t provide much help.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/what-exactly-do-we-mean-by-engagement-anyway.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5c9138e970b 2009-10-07T06:31:30-05:00 2009-10-16T16:01:04-05:00

Another kind of subculture, equally important, gets too little attention. It reflects particular processes, such as quality or planning. Of special importance to me is the culture around communication of business issues and information: the tendency of people throughout a company to share information, ideas and their intuition on business matters in a particular way. It is less about the flow of official information and more about the countless decentralized eddies of information converging and diverging throughout a company.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/what-is-your-companys-culture-of-communication.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a61aa4b5970c 2009-10-06T11:45:28-05:00 2009-10-16T08:57:06-05:00

No one, absolutely no one, has had greater influence on modern business management than Peter Drucker, as we wrote in this space four years ago on his passing just before his 96th birthday. The author of more than thirty books, Drucker single-handedly changed the focus of legions of progressive, far-sighted business executives.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/quote-unquote-peter-drucker-on-discretionary-effort.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b71c14970b 2009-10-05T06:46:00-05:00 2009-10-06T07:37:56-05:00

According to research by Abt SRBI Public Affairs and published in Time magazine, 49 percent of Americans agree that businesses will make socially responsible decisions without the government telling them what to do. A slightly smaller share, 42 percent, believe the opposite, that businesses cannot be trusted to make socially responsible decisions, and that it’s up to the government to tell them what to do.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/by-the-numbers-trust-and-distrust-in-business.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b96d88970b 2009-10-04T07:30:00-05:00 2009-10-03T14:40:53-05:00

Here is an interesting column by Joe Nocera, published Saturday in The New York Times, that illustrates the differences between the work of leadership and the work of management. It focuses on Kenneth Lewis, who announced his resignation a few days ago as chief executive of the Bank of America, the bank he helped build.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/the-work-of-a-leader.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b7c4f3970b 2009-10-03T07:42:00-05:00 2009-10-04T19:52:24-05:00

Leaders must never presume that their followers will fall into line, and they must never presume that their skeptics will be idle. Followers, both real and potential, will think and choose for themselves and align in their own strategic interest. They may or may not identify themselves in ways that the leaders presume. Their alliances may or may not reflect the assumptions of leaders. Their self-interest may or may not be apparent to leaders.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/insights-on-leadership-from-the-2016-olympics-decision.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b6b2ca970b 2009-10-02T14:28:17-05:00 2009-10-03T14:42:10-05:00

Lofty titles create the illusion of relative importance. They imply that certain persons in an organization are more important than others. That can only mean that the others will come to see themselves as less important. When that happens, they will naturally reduce their value to the organization and ultimately to the customer. After all, they aren’t so important.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/who-needs-to-be-a-vice-president.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a60a4f76970c 2009-10-01T20:23:58-05:00 2009-10-01T20:23:58-05:00

Have you ever noticed how many good ideas, really good ideas, crash and burn after someone responds with the words, "Well, let me play devil's advocate here . . ."? The next time you are tempted to play devil’s advocate, stop. Don’t do it. Decide instead to play the angel’s advocate, and see for yourself the difference it can make.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/instead-of-playing-devils-advocate-play-the-angels-advocate.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5a40427970b 2009-09-28T07:53:55-05:00 2009-09-28T07:53:56-05:00

Only 38 percent of employees of global corporations say their managers communicate openly and honestly. It’s hard to imagine that employers or the managers in question would agree with that perception, but communication, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is the listener’s judgment that counts. If the listener perceives half-truth or untruth, or if the listener perceives double talk or fast talk, then that is what it is. You have to deal with the perception, because perception is reality.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/by-the-numbers-front-line-supervisors-fail-to-communicate.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a589fdd0970b 2009-09-22T03:50:00-05:00 2009-10-16T09:05:02-05:00

You doubtless remember studying Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a paradigm in which the legendary psychologist rank ordered human needs from the most basic to the most transcendent. This hierarchy makes so much good, plain sense, it’s odd that more of us don’t use it as a foundation for ensuring workplace engagement.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/maslows-hierarchy-and-workplace-engagement.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5847fdd970b 2009-09-21T05:39:40-05:00 2009-09-20T07:57:42-05:00

Disengagement takes many forms, and it has many costs. Many estimates put the total cost of disengagement at between $300 billion and $350 billion per year. That’s somewhere between 2.1 and 2.5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/by-the-numbers-the-cost-of-disengagement.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5d6dc5d970c 2009-09-18T11:04:15-05:00 2009-09-18T15:40:19-05:00

I was asked repeatedly—both by recorded prompts and by customer-service agents speaking English as a not-quite second language—for my account number. I was transferred six or seven times each day, including twice in complete circles back to the original recorded greeting. That isn't all. I was hung up on, automatically, after I had patiently listened to marketing pitches while on hold for five or ten minutes after being continually transferred. Finally, I was told that I needed a new Internet router (provided by Comcast under my contract), and then I was told that if the service technician found that I actually didn’t need a new router, I would be billed $49.95 for an unnecessary service call. Arghhhh!

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/comcast-appoints-a-senior-vice-president-for-employee-engagement.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5c7b811970c 2009-09-15T11:05:00-05:00 2009-09-17T11:13:20-05:00

Benjamin Disraeli was twice the prime minister of England during the reign of Queen Victoria. He intuitively knew that compelling leadership is a kind of spiritual transaction between the leader and the led. Moreover, he understood and appreciated a paradox of leadership: that leaders must follow, and followers must lead. In one of his most famous remarks, Disraeli said: "I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/quote-unquote-benjamin-disraeli-on-the-paradox-of-leadership.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5c0748f970c 2009-09-14T07:23:00-05:00 2009-09-16T22:49:42-05:00

What is the ratio of engaged to disengaged employees in your organization? What are you doing about it?

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/by-the-numbers-disengaged-and-actively-disengaged-employees.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b8cb0e970c 2009-09-11T04:20:00-05:00 2009-09-22T06:41:17-05:00

The British author Charles Dickens must have been thinking of only the telegraph when he remarked: "Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with his soul encourages another person to be brave and true." What would he think of today's communication?

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/quote-unquote-charles-dickens-on-face-to-face-communication.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b6f6f4970c 2009-09-10T08:42:32-05:00 2009-09-10T08:42:32-05:00

Leadership, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Followers, potential or actual, determine whether they will follow anyone, and, if so, whom. They follow at their own discretion. No one can be ordered or required to follow anyone else. Choice is fundamental to leadership.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a5b4caff970c 2009-09-09T17:57:00-05:00 2009-09-12T10:19:55-05:00

We think of leadership as the work of bringing about change, either cultural or operational, through the discretionary (or optional) and often self-sacrificing efforts of people. That requires knitting together disparate people as a coalition or community, identifying and describing a threat or opportunity, developing and offering a cause (or solution) that addresses the concern, modeling the behaviors appropriate to that cause, campaigning for the cause, and finally meeting the rewards of success or the penalties for failure. All of that is in orbit around the connection between leaders and the led. It is important to emphasize that we define and compare these two concepts as work, not as levels of responsibility or as positions in an organization. The nature of the work is what counts.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/fleshing-out-differences-between-management-and-leadership-1.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a567c8f9970b 2009-09-07T11:07:00-05:00 2009-09-12T11:19:42-05:00

Our purpose is simple and straightforward. We want to make leadership and change simple, natural, and as close to inevitable in your organization as we possibly can. We think you will like that.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/our-philosophy.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a54ba06a970b 2009-09-06T13:43:00-05:00 2009-09-05T10:45:46-05:00

The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/to-be-of-use.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a54f32f5970b 2009-09-05T11:20:00-05:00 2009-09-06T17:02:01-05:00

Not every company naturally warms to the art of cultivating the next generation of leaders. Indeed, some do an appalling job of it. Take a look at this article in the September 3 issue of Business Week magazine. The article focuses on companies that headhunters avoid, but it dishes enough dirt on toxic cultures to be powerfully instructive on leadership development in general.

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/toxic-cultures-for-leadership.html tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451f6f769e20120a544e48e970b 2009-09-03T12:45:42-05:00 2009-09-03T15:28:23-05:00

I couldn’t agree more with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. Every corporate CEO and every communication consultant and practitioner should think hard about Admiral Mullen’s message, too. It would do business a lot of good. Mullen delivers a blistering attack on the use of verbal and visual messages that are out of synch with reality on the ground, and he is critical of communication as a substitute for relationships. He writes: “Our messages lack credibility because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises.”

Minding Gaps http://rainbows.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/strategic-communication-getting-back-to-the-basics.html