Category: Leadership

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Any business can be nimble. It starts with true leadership.

thepivotdiagram

We often hear about pivots and pivoting in the context of quick shifts by an individual or in the early days of a startup.

A quick “turn on a dime” pivot does not result in lasting change for a business beyond a handful of employees. Perhaps the mental model that a pivot must be quick has stopped you from considering it for your business. Consider The Pivot.

The Pivot leverages one of the most effective means for long-term change: collaboration. It inspires action in terms of best next steps.
Continue reading “Any business can be nimble. It starts with true leadership.”

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Aim to be a Great Leader? Don’t be a Hero.

superman-1070457_1280

We love our heroes. They stay alert for danger and then swoop in to save the day.

Everyday heroes may not be looking for danger but they are wired to be the person who saves the day, or in a workplace perhaps it is that they are the go-to person to solve a sticky problem.

A great leader isn’t the person to solve every problem, even if he or she could do so.

A great leader builds up others so that they solve the problems they encounter or foresee.

This is especially powerful when it creates closer collaboration within a team and across teams.

Does this mean you never help solve problems? No. If you (still) are an expert in a particular area or topic, and the team asks you to step into the problem as an expert, then you’ll do so. At that time you are in the role of the expert and not in the role of the leader.

“A great leader feels no need to be the hero. A great leader builds a team and supports them being a hero in their role.” ~ Lori Michele Leavitt

www.thepivotbook.com
www.thepivotbook.com

To learn more about building a great workplace and realizing performance breakthroughs (without being the hero)…

> Get my new book <

The Pivot: Orchestrating Extraordinary Business Momentum.

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Excellence in the Workplace – Found, Made or Elusive?

“Why is it so hard to find an excellent employee?”

That was the subject of a discussion in a leadership group on Linkedin. Responses (over one thousand to date!) can be grouped into four main themes:
1. that it is indeed nearly impossible to find an excellent person to hire;
2. that there are many excellent people, but they are in the wrong jobs;
3. that the right person may be out of work and not getting noticed; or
4. that employers are so far below excellence that no individual could be excellent in their employ.

Where’s the issue? Is it in the selection? hiring? alignment of person to role? management? something else? all of the above?

Consider-Is it that they aren’t excellent or is it that they become less so once they are in your workplace?

Continue reading “Excellence in the Workplace – Found, Made or Elusive?”
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Alignment Series #1: How to align people with strategy

Strategies change. At least they should – in order to even just keep up with the change around us.

This series addresses Alignment. How can you align your people with strategy? How do you know when strategy must change? (even when it hasn’t been a year)? How do you re-align people when strategy must change in a way that changes their daily work?

Let’s talk about the first step – aligning people with strategy (when the strategy does not require significant change in roles or the work people do). Continue reading “Alignment Series #1: How to align people with strategy”

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Align YOU with what you do.

Feel great & do even better! Who doesn’t want that for themselves? Who wouldn’t want that for others? So of course we foster feeling great at work. whoops! screech. halt. back up. We don’t? Why not? Mostly because what we think we need to do is hard. But they really are NOT what is needed, or wanted. I call these Better Business Management Myths and I’ve listed three for you below: Continue reading “Align YOU with what you do.”

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Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 7: Does cause-and-effect matter?

In this series we are talking about connecting – connecting to people, connecting people to the business results you want, and getting those results.

I’ve noted that as you work through this series you are bound to run into questions (I’ve opened up Ask Lori. for questions to me currently at no cost to you) and bottlenecks…

In this post I address a common question that often becomes a bottleneck, as it seems complex: determining up front the cause and effect relationship between objectives in your Strategy:

Question: Does cause-and-effect matter? When is it critical (figuring it out is slowing us down)? Continue reading “Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 7: Does cause-and-effect matter?”

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Leadership Connection- Step 6: How People Fit to your Bottom-Line

In this series we are talking about connecting – connecting to people, connecting people to the business results you want, and getting those results.

If you are just starting this series, you can catch up by reviewing the earlier posts. Find a recap at the end of this post. In this post we’re focused on two points:

1. You must measure what you expect to get, in order to get it.

2. Instead of doing things (those things as you’ve always done them) right, you must be doing the right things right to be successful.

And I provide you with action you can take right now – using information you’ve already gathered in Job Descriptions and Performance Reviews – to improve performance now for your company.

In the last step of this Series you collected important materials, many and maybe all of which you are using to plan what you expect and see if you’ve realized that. Some of you may even have information that clearly shows where you were, and were not aligned, leading from your plan to your reality. Most of you won’t have this clear story connecting expectation to reality. You will soon if you are following these steps.

I listed five (5) groups of materials in Step 5. Since you may have recently completed Performance Reviews for last year, I’m going to start with those. If the Review does not specify the most important duties for a role, please also grab the Job Description associated with each Review. There is a huge opportunity waiting for you in this process, which you can start realizing benefits from right away, so bear with me… Continue reading “Leadership Connection- Step 6: How People Fit to your Bottom-Line”

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Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 5: NOW GET GOING

In this series we are talking about connecting – connecting to people, connecting people to the business results you want, and getting those results.

Let me intro this next step before we recap, so that those that have been reading along don’t have to repeat (thanks to those who gave me this good feedback; the recap is at the end of the post)…

In Step 4 you removed roadblocks to aligning people’s actions with Strategy. Woot! Let’s get going!

For Step #5, collect these materials:

1. Your 1-3 Critical Strategic Objectives, which are now mapped to show relationship and the priorities of these Objectives and their Steps

See the Recap below for links to these prior steps. Questions? Click to “Ask Lori”

2. Your Annual Budget

If you do not have access to this, even for your department, you may want to pass this blog and Leadership series on to someone who does. Continue reading “Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 5: NOW GET GOING”