Want 52 great ideas for how to build trust in your organization? The annual Edelman survey reveals that less than 20% of business and government leaders are trusted to tell the truth, or that they make moral and ethical decisions. See their 2013 data below. Survey Respondents Distrust Our Leaders Such lack of trust is … Read more
by Bob Vanourek Higher trust in organizations leads to higher retention, cooperation, innovation, and pride. Higher trust enhances the speed at which organizations work because the fear created in low trust organizations is minimized. Higher trust leads to better results for all stakeholders from customers to employees and shareholders. Therefore, higher trust needs to be … Read more
by Bob Vanourek In 1981 I joined Monarch Marking Systems as their president. This subsidiary of Pitney Bowes was the leader in price-marking equipment used by retailers. But scannable bar codes had just come out, so price-marking equipment might become obsolete. I was stoked by this strategic challenge! Monarch had wisely reinvented itself as a … Read more
by Bob Vanourek Early in my leadership quest to “find a better way to lead,” I had the wonderful pleasure to work for Jan and Olga Erteszak, Polish immigrants who had fled the Nazis in Europe and then founded a ladies’ lingerie company in Los Angeles. The Olga Company was the creative leader in this … Read more
By Bob Vanourek I was flying from Cleveland to Chicago to meet my wife, June, and two young sons. They were flying from Los Angeles to meet me for a brief Christmas holiday. I had been “too busy” to fly back to help her cope with our toddler and the baby. (It is really so … Read more
Guest Post by Mike Figliuolo The pressure on leaders is increasing every day. Calls for “doing more with less” echo through the halls as ever-escalating expectations create a great deal of stress for leaders. The investment of a leader’s time, energy, and attention (what we call “leadership capital”) is a critical choice leaders … Read more
That’s why it’s called “the most elusive championship in all of sports.” It’s taken 37 years since Affirmed won the coveted Triple Crown of thoroughbred horseracing in 1978 for another winner to break through. On June 6 American Pharoah (an inadvertent misspelling of “pharaoh”) became only the 12th horse since 1875 to win the Triple … Read more
Are you tired? Stressed? Busy? Just par for the course for today’s leader, right? Wrong. These days, it seems that “busy is the new black.” Busy is in. People boast about how busy they are. When answering a schedule request, they regale you with all the things in their calendar that prevent them from meeting … Read more
Learning and Development Impacting Your Bottom Line Guest post by Rachel Kay Image: ShutterStock One of the biggest challenges you face as a leader when attempting to implement a learning and development (L&D) initiative within your company is convincing the decision-makers that it will benefit the company as a whole. When they can’t see … Read more
Set No More Than Six Personal Values Photo credit: iStock “Values tell you what to do when you don’t know what to do.” -Tom McCoy, executive vice president and general counsel for CH2M HILL Your personal values are essential. They set your moral compass. They guide your behavior when you are under the stresses of … Read more
6 Ingenious Ideas for Elevating Employee Productivity Guest blog by Karleia Steiner image source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ Elevating employee productivity can seem like a daunting and difficult task; however, creating a work environment that keeps employees working at their maximum potential can be achieved by simply shifting your frame of mind. 1. Listen to Your … Read more
“A Treasure of Wisdom” By Bob Vanourek Every now and then, I have a chance to read a book a colleague has written and want to tell others about it. Such it is with Frank Sonnenberg’s Follow Your Conscience: Make a Difference in Your Life and the Lives of Others. Frank is an … Read more
Culture-Building Workshop By Bob Vanourek “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.” -Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM in Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance Most leaders know the importance of culture but have little first-hand experience with how to develop … Read more
“Blue Ocean” Trust-Building Workshop (This Takes Guts) By Bob Vanourek Building trust requires courage: the courage to be vulnerable, to listen to feedback on what you, as a leader, do daily, and the resolve to follow through on your commitments to change, even if those changes are uncomfortable. This trust-building activity takes guts … Read more
Our friend and colleague, Bob Whipple, “The Trust Ambassador,” recently posted this blog on “Merger Problems” that we’d like to share with you. Bob’s most recent book, Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change, deals with this subject in wonderful depth.
image credit: Bigstock By Bob Vanourek Congratulations. You’ve just been invited to join your first public company board. Great. Now, what can you expect? It’s not just approving the CEO’s strategy or officer compensation recommendations after asking a few questions. It’s more than risk assessments, financial statement reviews, and meeting with the outside auditors periodically. … Read more
Image credit: Public Domain “Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.” -James MacGregor Burns We all face ethical challenges and dilemmas, and all the more so if we lead. Think how you would act in the following scenarios: You give the cashier a $10 bill, and she gives you … Read more
“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” -Winston Churchill With all the leadership scandals and breakdowns in virtually every segment of society bombarding us day-in and day-out, it is easy to become cynical about our leaders today. Yet we’re cautiously optimistic despite … Read more
This week we bring you profound advice from a trusted colleague and friend, Robert Whipple, CEO of Leadergrow Incorporated. His recent post really drove home for us, and we wanted to share it with you. It gives 8 actionable items which will help improve your vision as a leader, and help you improve the vision … Read more
