Preparing to launch

Boatyards are busy places in the Spring. Every year I see people all having the same goal, to launch their boats, but with different styles: The competitive ones who want to be first to have their boats in the water, the methodical ones who check-off a list of tasks for proper launching, and the socialites who thoroughly enjoy walking around and talking to everyone else.

Work places too are populated by different types of people, and just as marketers segment their markets and customers, leaders would do well to understand that while creating an overall cultural identity is important to run the business, the only way to truly engage employee motivation is to tap rational self interest. In the case of large employee groups, you have to segment. For executives and many key staff it requires smaller groups or even individual attention.

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How to Get Your Senior Team On the Same Page Get past all the politics, silos, and dysfunction that come from senior managers who are working on different agendas and with difficult personalities. Here’s the link to my new 2½ minute video CLICK HERE

Bob Legge is the Strategic Edge providing organizations with the ability to achieve their most audacious goals. His clients have included Fortune 500 companies, mid-size companies, non-profits, education and government. To find out more, contact Bob at boblegge@boblegge.com or call him at (585) 305-7853.

Bob’s blog is www.boblegge.wordpress.com

Bob’s website is www.boblegge.com.

The Bright Side of Last Week’s Tragedy

What a week. The Boston marathon, the Texas explosion, letters sent to government officials with ricin. The bright side was the willingness of people to get involved and help people they didn’t know in the midst of chaos even when danger still existed. It’s amazing the ability of people to come together at times like that. There is an underlying human current in every group, crowd, and organization; one that naturally emerges in such situations. We’d do well to recognize that untapped power of people – not to exploit it, but to connect with the need of people for greater purpose.

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The Pope On Change Leadership

Here’s one to watch: The new pope has launched a major change initiative to revise the Roman Curia’s constitution. So far Pope Francis has made some classic good moves: Involving a panel of cardinals to advise him, clearly communicating what the change is, and admonishing priests to practice what they preach. In noting that inconsistencies undermine the Church’s credibility, he said that ordinary Catholics need to “see in our actions what they hear from our lips.” That’s a change leadership imperative that is often broken by executives and managers leading to change failure.

Further, he is expected to begin changing the highly-centralized structure of the Church, presumably to move more decision making closer to the Church’s customers, I mean faithful.

But don’t hold your breath, the panel won’t officially begin its work until October.

Not Lovin’ It So Much

McDonalds told franchisees last month that “service is broken.” Rude employees, slow service, and a chaotic environment don’t lead to a good customer experience. No doubt it’s quite a challenge to ensure consistent quality across 14,000 locations. But wait a minute—this is a big deal precisely because consistency has always been a core element of McDonald’s business strategy–no matter where you go, a Big Mac is a Big Mac. So to lose control of service quality is a major problem; not of the strategy itself, but of how it is implemented. Getting all employees on-board with the strategy is a key challenge of strategy implementation in every organization.

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Strategy Implementation Intensive – Magnify the impact of your strategy through a group workshop designed to build accountability, create an environment where all employees act as owners, dramatically improve strategy communication, create a strong management platform, and get everyone on the same page. And do it all with the finest in executive development. If you want to know more about this highly focused and proven approach to dramatically improve results, contact me.

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Create a compelling vision for your company. See my free video here: http://youtu.be/nWWQHJ8L-AA

How to Create a Compelling Vision

Vision statements should be compelling. They should paint a clear, vivid description of the organization in the future — what you want to achieve. Here’s how to create an effective vision.

Vision and Accountability

The qualities of outstanding leaders, those respected by the people they lead, have been detailed by thought-leaders over and over through the years. What Drucker, Collins, Wheatley, Pink, and I all agree on is that effective leaders demonstrate integrity, the talent to simultaneously encourage and challenge people, and the ability to provide clear direction and vision. Today, the pressure to deliver results is causing managers at all levels to resort to using fear and control. While these may drive short-term results, they destroy motivation and the capacity of organizations. At times like these, it is even more important to reestablish effective leadership and to replace fear and control with vision and accountability.

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Watch my brief video, How to Create a Compelling Vision: http://youtu.be/nWWQHJ8L-AA

Season-ending defeats

In every major sport, the best teams enter a playoff to determine the overall winner. In the case of NCAA Men’s Basketball, that’s 64 teams, sometimes more. All but one of those teams will end their season with a loss. And that is where all the analogies of sports and business diverge, because in business (and in life) accountability and results are ongoing. You’re never done with customer satisfaction, or sales, or innovation. Your last victory, and especially your last defeat, does not define you.

Make Your Strategy Work

Getting the most from your organization and yourself

Monthly Archives: April 2013