When it comes to promoting ethical behavior in your organization, it’s not just about your own actions. It’s about building an ethical culture in which doing the right thing is not only encouraged but expected, demanded, and incentivized. In such a culture, everybody knows that character counts. They’re committed to pursuing great results (the excellence … Read more
Article Summary: Dialogue is a rarely used but potentially transformative gathering and communication process that can help groups tap into their collective wisdom, realize new insights, and bridge divides. +++ Good leaders are effective communicators. One powerful but rarely used form of communication is dialogue. Dialogue is a special form of respectful conversation between people … Read more
I was co-captain of the soccer team and we were flailing. Things weren’t all bad. We had good players—some great—and were doing well in league matches. But for some reason this season, several players were rebelling against the coach. Perhaps some of it was resentment about the intense focus on fitness, with brutal sprinting drills … Read more
One of the most powerful ideas we discovered in our research for our book, Triple Crown Leadership—including interviewing leaders in 61 organizations in 11 countries—is one we call “stewards” (and building a culture of stewardship). It’s one of the most unusual and counterintuitive leadership practices we’ve ever discovered. A “steward” is a person who is … Read more
Most leaders understand that organizational culture is important. But many struggle with how to change and improve their culture. For too many leaders, culture is too ethereal, too hard to measure, too intangible. So, they muddle along with speeches, slogans, or projects, but their organizational culture refuses to budge. That’s unfortunate because your ideal culture … Read more
Does your organization have some toxic micro-cultures? If so, you ignore them at your peril. Much is written these days about the importance of culture in boosting an organization’s success. Strategy is important, as are talent, business models, innovation, and more. But culture, “how we do things here,” as we like to define it, can … Read more
