Decision-Making Best Practice 8 – Observe the Opportunity or Problem First Hand

StrategyDriven Decision-Making ArticleEvery problem possesses unique nuanced qualities and it is often these minor details that renders a decision a striking success, a monumental failure, or, most frequently, simply average. Those who recognize these details can exploit them to their organization’s advantage.


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The Ladder of Commitment

Are you going to achieve your most important targets for the coming year?

Your answer to that question can reveal a lot about where you are on what I call “the Ladder of Commitment “, and is generally highly predictive of how far you’ll go in your pursuit of success.

Here’s a quick look at that ladder from the bottom up, along with what may be a surprising conclusion about what it really takes to reach your targets, in business and in life…

1. Helplessness

Years ago, scientists did an experiment on lab rats that involved dividing a metal cage into four sections and placing electrical current underneath each section. When a section of the cage was filled with live current, the rat would receive a small shock if stepping into that part of the cage. Quickly, the rat would learn to avoid that section.

Over time, each section of the cage was electrified in turn, leaving only one quadrant of the cage as a ‘safe haven’ for our experimental rat.

What happened?


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About the Author

Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative coach and the author of the new book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life. For the past 20 years, he has been a coach, adviser, mentor, and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty and people who want to get more out of their lives. He hosts a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com, and his daily and weekly coaching columns can be read on his website www.geniuscatalyst.com.

Leadership Inspirations – Confidence, Fun, and Amazing Things

“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.”

Joe Namath (a.k.a. ‘Broadway Joe‘)
NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback,
led the New York Jets to win Super Bowl III

The New Thinking on KPIs, part 1 of 4

“Show me a company who thinks they have KPIs, which are measured monthly and quarterly, and I will show you measures that do not create change, alignment and growth and have never been KPIs”

David Parmenter
Internationally renown presenter and expert on Key Performance Indicators

From my research, very few organizations really monitor their true KPIs. The reason is very few organizations, business leaders, writers, corporate accountants, and consultants have explored what a KPI actually is. This brief paper hopefully will help you unearth what a KPI is and point where to look for them in your organization.

Let me explain what a KPI is through two KPI stories.


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About the Author

David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs and Pareto’s 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants, is an international presenter who is known for his thought provoking and lively sessions, which have led to substantial change in many organizations. He is a leading expert in developing winning KPIs, replacing the annual planning process with quarterly rolling planning, accelerating month-end processes, and converting reporting to a decision based tool.

David’s work on KPIs has received international recognition with clients in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tehran, Prague, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. David is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and has worked for Ernst & Young, BP Oil Ltd, Arthur Andersen, and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

David’s recent thinking is accessible from www.davidparmenter.com. He can be contacted at [email protected] or telephone +64 4 499 0007.

This articles is an extract from his “Implementing winning KPIs” whitepaper which can be downloaded from http://davidparmenter.com/how-to-guides)

StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 31 – How to Better Engage Employees

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 31 – How to Better Engage Employees explores the actions executives and managers can take to better engage their employees; revealing how to improve employee satisfaction, productivity, retention, and ultimately the bottom line. During our discussion, Michael Lee Stallard, author of Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity and co-Founder and President of E Pluribus Partners, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the benefits leaders realize as a result of better engaging their employees
  • the most significant driver of employee engagement and why is this factor so important
  • actions executives, managers, and supervisors should take to foster an engaging workplace environment
  • what a Connection Culture is and why it is so powerful at engaging employees
  • how to create a Connection Culture
  • actions executives and managers should take when someone within their organization does not buy-in or embrace the organization’s Connection Culture
  • the impact of ‘hard’ factors, such as HR policies and benefits, on workforce engagement

Additional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Michael shares in Fired Up or Burned Out and this edition of the StrategyDriven Podcast are the resources accessible from his websites, www.FiredUpOrBurnedOut.com and www.EPluribusPartners.com. Michael’s Connection Culture Manifesto can be downloaded for free by clicking here. His book, Fired Up or Burned Out, can be purchased by clicking here.

A special gift for StrategyDriven readers…

We are pleased to announce that Michael has made the electronic version of his book, Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity, available for download at no cost to our readers. Simply click on the link above to download your copy of this remarkable book on how to better engage employees; igniting their creativity, imagination, and spirits to the success of the organization.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!


About the Author

Michael Lee Stallard, author of Fired Up or Burned Out, is co-Founder and President of E Pluribus Partners, a consulting firm specializing in helping leaders create ‘Connection Cultures’ to form strong bonds among the management, employees, and customers of an organization. Michael’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Leader to Leader, Human Resource Executive, and Fox Business Now. He has spoken at conferences organized by The Conference Board, GE, Google, NASA, Johnson & Johnson and Yale-New Haven Hospital. To read Michael’s full biography, click here.