Posts tagged as:

leadership

Without Support You Will Fall

by Steven M. Smith

History provides lessons for teams. Let’s take the time to explore a few of them.
This post explores patterns that I see resulting from the interaction of ability, demands and support. Let me explicitly state what I mean by those variables –
Ability is the capacity to do something through talent and skill.
Demands are the problems that [...]

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What is Leadership?

by Steven M. Smith

How do I define leadership?
Leadership is the ability to adapt the setting so everyone feels empowered to contribute creatively to solving the problems.
Leadership is an ability, meaning a leader has a capacity to do something through talent and skill. Talent is natural ability and skill is proficiency gained through training and experience. Talent certainly  helps, [...]

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Managing Yourself, Managing Meetings

by Steven M. Smith

Workshop
Is your time being wasted in meetings?
For example, you join a problem solving meeting attended by the right six people. But the discussion wanders aimlessly and contributes little to the solution. You feel your time was squandered and wish you would have invested your time doing something that would have made a difference for yourself, [...]

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Change: Knowing When, Knowing How

by Steven M. Smith

Workshop
Kurt Lewin said, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” A gift from pioneering family therapist Virginia Satir is a good theory about how people process change.
The Satir Change Model describes the: five major stages of a change; transition between stages; effects each stage has on feelings, thinking, performance, and physiology; and interventions [...]

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AYE Conference 2010

by Steven M. Smith

Please join me at the annual Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) Conference. I am a conference host as well as a session leader. The focus is around individual, team and organizational effectiveness.
Esther Schindler, a reporter for CIO Magazine, participated at the 2006 conference and said the following about it on CIO.com’s Information Collective Blog:
…it was a [...]

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Gandhi and Change Agents

by Steven M. Smith

Mahatma Gandhi epitomizes the effective change agent. In my opinion, he was not only the Twentieth Century’s greatest change agent but also its greatest leader.
Are you looking for change agents in your organization? Let’s explore desirable qualities for change agents exemplified by Gandhi.
He believed in the Hindu religion, which, from what I understand, holds the [...]

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A Wild Horse Called Chaos

by Steven M. Smith

Is chaos like a wild horse?
The root for the word “manage” is an Italian word that means “to train a horse.”
Inhumane horse trainers (managers) see a rebellious animal who must adjust to a new environment. They transform the horse through a process they call “breaking.” They break the will of the horse so it submits [...]

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Ban Crackberries from Meetings?

by Steven M. Smith

Todd Wilkens advocates banning crackberries from all meetings. I agree with Todd that people distracted by emails and phone calls aren’t focused and become impediments to an effective meeting. But, in my experience, too many organizations have terribly ineffective meetings. If your organization’s meetings are terrible, will a ban on crackberries make them effective?
No.
A pattern [...]

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Elements of Effective Management

by Steven M. Smith

I am fortunate to have worked on a team led by Anne Cawley early in my career. Experience working with her enabled me to know, rather than speculate, about the power of an effective manager.
What elements of her management style made her effective?
Congruence: She conversed with members of her team as equals rather than subordinates.
Hiring: [...]

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BOGSAT Intervention

by Steven M. Smith

You have heard of the fog of war. But have you heard of a BOGSAT — Big Official Group Sitting Around Talking? It’s a disease that infects organizations.
Let me share with you a story about a BOGSAT intervention.
I am an expert at leading meetings. I have a natural talent for following and guiding a meeting [...]

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