Dialogue is the “oxygen of change.” Internal change champions, who influence others without authority, demonstrate and communicate the project benefits, including:      · the big picture,      · honest assessment of current state, and      · the light at the end of the tunnel. Their level of involvement is proportional to how…

Proverbs 24:26 states, “An honest answer is as pleasing as a kiss on the lips” and kids commonly hear, “Honesty is always the best policy.” Yet, is this really what we mean? Recently, I have been trying to raise my adolescent son to realize that he can’t say everything in his head and he needs…

How aware are you of your emotions? Emotional intelligence (EQ) impacts your performance as much as IQ. “EQ is a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way" (Source: Psychology…

George Lucas, famous for writing and directing the Star Wars movies, created these movies after he could not get the rights to Flash Gordon.  Thomas Edison, when inventing the light bulb, said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Of course, he also operationalized research and development at his company,…

In 1900, London was the world’s most populous city with 6.5 million people, followed by New York, Paris and Berlin. Tokyo was the only non-Western urban center on the largest cities list. This year, no US or European city will be in the top 10…instead, it is Mumbai (India), Chongqing (China) and Lagos (Nigeria) with…

There are global risks that corporations must mitigate. If not addressed, the occurrences could have a negative impact on an organization. The World Economic Forum reported in 2014 that the top five were: income disparity, extreme weather events, unemployment and underemployment, climate change and cyber-attacks. If ranked by impact and not likelihood, then the top…

When an “IBM-er” joined Dell Computers, he was told at his first performance review that “Margin decreases revenue velocity.” There are trade-offs between driving gross margin vs. top-line growth. Both companies are successful, yet they measure and pursue different metrics. You need to know what YOUR company is measured on. A corporate scorecard (or dashboard)…

There have been more changes in the first 15 years of this millennium than in the entire millennium before Christ. ·      Demographically: Total world population has grown from 275 million at 1000 AD to 6 billion in 2000 AD ·      Technologically: smart phones, drones, etc…. ·      Geo-politically: Russia, Iraq, etc…. ·      Culturally: o   Agrarian economy…

GM failed to disclose defective ignition switches…for a decade. GM’s handling of the ignition switches is reminiscent of Ford’s Pinto in the 1970’s…known about for a decade, yet rejected a fix due to a “tooling cost” deemed too high. GM’s faulty product has been linked to 13 deaths. Finally, in 2014, 15 million vehicles were…

Employee engagement is positively influenced by: meaningful work (worthwhile, purpose), collaboration (cooperation, encouragement), autonomy, growth (career development), task variety (challenge, complexity), performance expectations (clear evaluation factors), feedback (timely, relevant, specific), workload (reasonable), distributive fairness (pay, benefits, resources, workload are equitable and balanced), procedural fairness (impartial policies, procedures, decisions), connectedness with leadership (trust, ethical, interpersonal), connectedness…