LeadingChangeWithoutAuthority

Gary owns a courier service in Denver, Colorado. We met in Starbucks, and when he discovered what I do, he asked for some advice. His situation was that he had a delivery contractor who had a bad attitude along with some behavioral issues. On top of that difficult situation, Gary needed to lower the contractor’s compensation as a percentage of revenue, as the current situation was not profitable for the company.

My coaching to him was basically to use the essence of the Framework for Leadership. I’ll bet you’re thinking, “what a surprise!” The idea was to first set the context (more…)

I was working with a leadership development team in Ft. Worth, TX last week with some of our self-awareness assessments, and it brought back memories of my Hewlett-Packard days. HP always did a lot of management and leadership training, for which I am grateful. But of all the classes I attended over twelve years, THE most valuable was the one related to (more…)

In their July newsletter ELSolutions referenced a Cornell University study, as reported in FSB (Fortune Small Business) Magazine, suggesting that a key deterent to organizational performance is “Letting Conflicts Fester.”

The article goes on to say, “Bringing tensions out into the open and then resolving them is one of a team leader’s most important jobs.” (We agree.) “The more creative a leader can be the more likely that conflict can be discussed and resolved,” they went on to say. We see that last sentence as the challenge. What does “being creative” look like in a particular situation? Almost by definition, being creative doesn’t have any particular structure. That makes it potentially complex and difficult. Success is way to dependent upon “being creative,” which has a lot of variability among people.

Our new book, Leadership Made Simple, provides a simple approach to dealing with this difficult challenge of conflict resolution. Here is an example from the book of the process being used. It begins on page 137 in chapter 11 of the book: (more…)