Seeing kids boarding buses to go back to school at this time of year reminds me of the value of education. Taking advantage of developmental and educational opportunities is one of the best ways to advance your career. Sadly, most of the benefits offered by employers, universities, and communities …
Career Developemnt
What is Your Organization’s Growth Strategy
Supporting your organization’s growth strategy is a good way to accelerate your career progression. Take the time to understand how opportunities are identified and funded in your area. Then you can determine how to best add value to the process. Association with successful growth and enterprise …
Identify and Reward Your Talent Scouts
I recently watched the movie Air: Courting a Legend on Prime Video. It stars Matt Damon as John Paul Vincent “Sonny” Vaccaro, the former sports marketing executive who worked with Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. The movie tells the story of how Vaccaro got Michael Jordan his first sneaker contract with …
Adopt Two Principles to Build Pools of Talent
Each year annual surveys of CEOs highlight the need for leaders as a major concern. According to Herminia Ibarra of the London Business School we need leaders who can handle adaptive challenges – which she defines as problems that cannot be solved from the top down, but require people, teams, …
Lead with an Enterprise Mindset
Speaking to a group of Fortune 500 managers, I was asked to share keys to leading with an enterprise mindset. In my experience there are three keys to leading with an enterprise mindset – 1) adopt an infinite mindset; 2) consider multiple perspectives or lenses; and 3) become a solutions …
The Power of Questions
My grandmother Martin, when commenting on the difficult adolescent years, would often say, “teenagers have all the answers, it is the questions they are minus.” Good questions can foster creativity, provide insight, and focus the mind to address problems. The ability to construct, ask, and …
The Real Value of Pay Transparency
Pay transparency is getting a lot of press recently, with New York introducing legislation requiring businesses to list salary ranges. The shift toward pay transparency is growing globally, with other cities expected to follow suit. But salary ranges are just one piece of information, and many …
Teaching Kids About Careers
This week I spoke to 20 elementary school children (Kindergarten through 3rd grade), about careers. The beauty of working with kids is you have to be clear, direct, and not use jargon. In that spirit, I’d like to share three keys to career exploration we can all adopt using the eyes of …
The Who, What, How, and Why of Value
Clearly and concisely communicating how you add value is a cornerstone of success. No matter the situation - looking for a new job, growing your business, or volunteering for an organization – the ability to denominate your value is important. But this is one of the weakest skills I’ve observed in …
Happy, Unstructured, and Grind Time
Over the years I have learned that managing my energy and focus, versus time management, is the key to enhancing productivity. By shifting the focus from time management to energy management I work on what I want to, when I want to, and under my desired environmental conditions. My goal is to …
Build Broad-Based Coalitions to Become a “Triple Bottom Line” Leader
Building broad-based community coalitions is a key skill, especially as you rise to the upper levels of an organization. But in my experience, leaders fail to recognize the importance of this ability early enough and wait too long to proactively develop. The result is being passed over for …
Celebrate and Appreciate Your Way to Success
“What gets measured gets done,” is an often-quoted business aphorism (FYI, wrongly attributed to management guru Peter Drucker). Proper attribution aside, the veracity of the statement is evident to anyone working in a large organization. Companies allocate their time, money, and human capital to …