Reminder: What I Do
Just a quick reminder to all my blog readers that in addition to all the thinking and writing I do, a also have a consulting and speaking business! My work focuses on helping clients improve organizational performance by ...
Category: Consulting
The Lighter Side
I do my fair share of serious presentations at conferences, as does my friend and colleague, Jeff De Cagna. But last week at the CalSAE annual meeting, we had the opportunity to do a five minute ignite presentation, and ...
Strong Cultures Perform Better
I like this brief report from some McKinsey consultants (who have written a pretty good book too). The first conclusion in the study is one that is not new, but still bears repeating: culture matters. I love this selecti ...
Silos and Conflict
People have been complaining about "silos" in organizations for years and years. In solving one problem (putting people together in a department in order to deepen expertise and be efficient), we created some new ones (t ...
Performance Management
Way back in 2005 I said performance reviews were a problem (in We Have Always Done It That Way--still a good book, if I do say so myself). Since then, many others have been coming out against performance reviews--like th ...
It’s the Culture, Stupid
Organizational culture is a funny thing. I think most people would agree that it's important. I don't hear people saying, "Nah, it doesn't matter what our organizational culture is; we'll perform well regardless." And if ...
Book Review: Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni
I think I've said several times on this blog that Patrick Lencioni is my favorite business author. I like the way he delivers his material in the form of a story, complete with characters and drama and plot (but if ...
Been There, Done That
For the first seven years of my consulting career, I did tons of consulting projects with CEOs and senior managers, even though I had never actually been a CEO or senior manager. Eighteen months ago I joined forces with ...
The Discourse of Complaining
In my consulting work, I work with clients to solve problems. That, of course, means we have to clearly identify the problems, which, in turn, means I am guaranteed to spend time with people who are complaining. It see ...
Managing Conflict With Confidence Session at ASAE09
I was sort of looking forward to simply being an attendee at ASAE & The Center's Annual Meeting in Toronto this year. I had been a speaker or at least led the bloggercon session for the last four meetings. I like ...