The following is a guest piece by Bruce Rosenstein.

How can leaders best shape the future of their organizations?

Despite all of the competing demands in a leader’s day, it is important to be focused on the future as well as the present. Peter Drucker, who was considered to be the “father of modern management,” did not mince words when he advised managers and leaders about the dangers of complacency and putting off the future. That’s why I believe that it is important to tap into some of his most pointed and provocative advice for creating the best possible futures for our organizations.

Consider how the following quotes resonate with your own conception of leadership as it relates to the future. What ideas do they give you for changing the future direction of your organization? And can they be applied not just to your own place of work, but to your entire profession?

…the seemingly most successful business of today is a sham and a failure if it does not create its own and different tomorrow. It must innovate and re-create its products or services but equally the enterprise itself.” – The Executive in Action, 1996

Can you think of examples of seemingly successful businesses that ultimately failed because they did not Click here to continue reading »

Original illustration by Alya Naseer.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of hosting a number of talented and respected writers from the field of leadership. But being able to host the following guest writer is definitely a memorable highlight for my blog.

Today’s guest piece is written by my 14-year old daughter, Alya Naseer, who – as those who follow me on the various social media channels already know – published her first illustrated book earlier this year on Amazon – “Don’t Change: A Mother’s Letter Of Love For Her Daughter” (which, by the way, makes a great holiday gift for both mothers and daughters).

Since writing her book, Alya has been invited to write for a number of blogs about her experiences and the lessons she’s learned. In this piece, she shares her insights on what this experience taught her – and what we can all learn – about how to overcome the challenges we face in order to ultimately be successful in our efforts.

Life, as we know it, is full of challenges. Finding the right job, making enough money to pay the bills, building and maintaining relationships, and accomplishing our goals is not always easy, and yet they make our lives feel successful and happy.

For me, one of the many challenges I faced was publishing my own book, “Don’t Change: A Mother’s Letter Of Love For Her Daughter”, without the help of a publisher. Many times I had to contact Amazon to get the information I needed to publish my book – the image size requirements, available print sizes, how the royalty payments worked, and many other details. Other times, I had to research online to figure out how to create my book.

When publishing my book, I not only needed many different computer and artistic skills, but I also needed self-confidence, determination and perseverance, patience, curiosity, and the encouragement and support of those around me. Some of these skills I already possessed, others I needed to develop to complete my book. Here are four lessons I want to share that helped me to develop the skills I needed to accomplish my goal, steps you can take to help you achieve yours. Click here to continue reading »

When it comes to discussions on the various challenges leaders need to address in today’s fast-changing global economy, there’s one topic that merits a proper assessment as to whether or not it’s really an issue for today’s organizations. And that is the issue of how to effectively manage a multi-generational workforce.

In some ways it’s only natural that we see an increase in discussions on potential challenges for organizations in operating under a multi-generational workforce. With the Boomer generation staying in the workforce longer due to declining retirement savings and increasing cost-of-living expenses, organizations are not only having to deal with three different generations of employees working together, but also the impact of a slowdown in the rate of upward career movement for younger workers.

The problem, though, with these discussions of managing a multi-generational workforce is when the focus shifts to trying to articulate differences in values, motivations, and attitudes based purely on generational cohorts, especially when it comes to trying to differentiate the Millennial generation from previous ones.

One of the key faults found in all these discussions on the differences between Millennials and the other generational cohorts is that they often differentiate generational values with respect to technological differences – in particular, differences in usage – as opposed to sociological ones. Specifically, how the focus tends to be on how Millennials are the first generation to grow up in a ‘high-tech’, mobile world.

We have to remember that Click here to continue reading »

As November slowly comes to an end, many organizations and their leaders are naturally looking back at the past year, evaluating what went right and where things missed the mark to help plan what measures they’ll need to take in response to this year’s successes and failures. To that end, many leaders are now rolling up their sleeves as they prepare for the yearly organizational ritual of the annual performance review.

Of course, for many employees, the arrival of the annual performance review is not something to look forward to, in large part because most leaders fail to communicate their expectations throughout the year. As a result, these feedback sessions end up coming off as more of a laundry list of things employees did wrong than an evaluation of how much progress they’ve made in their role.

Another problem which gives rise to this apprehension and indifference to receiving feedback is that leaders approach the conversation from the wrong vantage point. Specifically, that just as is the case with giving recognition, the act of giving feedback should not be about you. Rather, it’s about helping your employees to Click here to continue reading »