Does vision still play a key role for organizations in today’s ever-changing world?

That’s one of several questions which I discuss with my guest, Jesse Lyn Stoner, in the third episode of my podcast series, “Leadership Biz Cafe”.

Jesse Lyn Stoner is a business consultant, former executive, and bestselling author. For over 30 years, she has worked with leaders in hundreds of organizations including Honda, Pfizer, Marriott, Edelman Public Relations, Yale University, and SAP.

In this episode, we discuss some of the ideas she shares about vision in the international bestseller she co-authored with Ken Blanchard, “Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision In Your Work and Your Life”.

Over the course of our conversation, Jesse and I discuss:

• Why creating a vision remains a critical tool for organizations to navigate the growing competitive market.
• The key elements necessary for creating an effective vision statement.
• Why organizations need to not only establish, but rank in importance, the values that define their internal culture.
• Why leaders need to present their vision in terms of what their employees will gain as opposed to focusing on what they have to give up from implementing this plan.
• How leaders should go about creating a vision to encourage their employees to embrace it and make it their own.
• What leaders can do to ensure their vision remains relevant in the face of continual change and increasing global competitiveness.

The insights Jesse shared during our conversation illustrate that vision is more relevant than ever and the fact that we continued our discussion about vision long after we finished taping this episode was a clear indication to both of us that this is a topic that deserves another look.

Also, as I mentioned at the end of the show, I’d love to hear what you think about this episode, as well as what other topics you’d be interested in hearing more about in upcoming episodes of my show. You can share your thoughts/ideas by leaving a comment below or by filling out the contact form on my website.

Click on the player below to listen to the podcast:

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Noteworthy links:

Buy Jesse Lyn Stoner’s book “Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision In Your Work and Your Life” on Amazon.com (or Amazon.ca for Canadian readers)

Check out her blog at SeapointCenter.com to read more of her insights on leadership and vision.

No matter what field or industry you work in, we’ve all had the experience of working for someone who was clearly not fit for the leadership role. In some cases, this was manifested in their inability to make key decisions and in the worst-case scenarios, it was like working with the boss from hell. Under these situations, it’s typical to wonder why someone who can’t effectively lead others would be given such a position. Now, thanks to two recent studies, some light has been cast on why these situations are more the rule than the exception.

In a recent survey conducted by CareerBuilder among over 2 000 US employers and almost 4 000 US employees, it was revealed that 58% of managers hadn’t received any form of management training. This finding most likely explains why 26% of these same managers admitted that they weren’t ready to become a leader when they took on these management roles.

Looking at the relationship between these managers and their employees, the survey authors found that managers cited motivating their employees and managing interpersonal conflicts between co-workers as the top challenges that they have to face as leaders in their organization.

As for the employees surveyed for this study, some of the top concerns they had about their manager were a lack of regular feedback, not listening to the concerns of the employees, and a failure to follow through on what their manager said they would do.

In another study, Bradford Thomas and Scott Erker from Development Dimensions International (DDI) conducted a survey of 1 130 supervisors and first-level managers to understand how they’re overcoming the challenges they face as leaders, and what obstacles might be preventing them from succeeding in these roles.

Like the CareerBuilder study, Thomas and Ecker also found that Click here to continue reading »”Becoming A Leader For All The Wrong Reasons”

Opportunity.

It’s one of a handful of words which on its own can inspire hope and the sense that we might be one step closer to reaching those personal goals we set out for ourselves.

Opportunities also serve as the driving force that pushes organizations into pursuing new territory, in the hopes of discovering potential new markets for their products/services to boost stagnant or declining revenue shares.

It’s no doubt the reason why we find it so hard to say “No” to new opportunities because of the inherent belief that any opportunity which crosses our path is an open door leading us one step closer to our objectives.

Although we spend so much time talking about seeking opportunities, we rarely consider the importance or value of the quality of the opportunities we’re offered. That’s why most of us approach opportunities from the vantage point of “if we don’t accept it or if we pass this up, what will we lose?”

Perhaps a better question we should ask ourselves when such opportunities arise is Click here to continue reading »”Do You Have A Healthy Relationship With Opportunity?”

One of the new features I will be adding to my blog this year is what I’m calling the “Coffee House Book Review”, which will feature reviews on books from the fields of leadership, management, marketing, and other areas of interest to those who are running or managing a business or organization. To start off this new series, I’d like to share my review of the book “
The Drucker Lectures: Essential Lessons on Management, Society, and Economy” which I received as a review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Often referred to as the “father of modern management”, Peter Drucker was a writer and management consultant who wrote numerous books and spoke extensively on the field of management and the way organizations operated. Although this book at times offers a glimpse of the origins for the concepts he later shared in some of his more well-known works, what is more interesting is the fact that several of these lectures – most of which date to over two decades ago – could have easily been written to address some of the challenges businesses and society face today.

Of course, having coined the term “knowledge worker”, many of the lectures featured in this book touch on the realities of today’s information age. In his 1981 lecture “Managing the Increasing Complexity of Large Organizations”, Drucker makes a very strong argument against leaders who think their job is simply to tell their employees what to do. As he points out, it’s the employees who now hold an organization’s specialized knowledge and as such, leaders should work with their employees to determine how to best apply this information toward their goals.

In another lecture he gave in 1987, Drucker draws the analogy of organizations becoming more like a symphony orchestra, “in which you will have fewer layers of management and many more specialists”. In this talk, he shares the story of how Click here to continue reading »”Coffee House Book Review – “The Drucker Lectures” by Peter F. Drucker”