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Your Personal Path to Better Leadership

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What You Can’t See
There are innumerable resources on how to be a more effective leader, but what if you asked the people you work with – what advice would they give you?

Would they tell you to take your greatest strengths and run with them?
Or
Would they suggest some areas to work on?

Would their advice make you nod your head?
Or
Would their insights surprise you?

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About the Author

Emma WilhelmEmma Wilhelm, M.S., is senior writer and product developer at Inscape Publishing, where she helps to develop innovative training and development products. Along with Jeffrey Sugerman, Ph.D., and Mark Scullard, Ph.D., she is coauthor of The 8 Dimensions of Leadership: DiSC Strategies for Becoming a Better Leader. To read Emma’s complete biography, click here.

Decision-Making Best Practice 14 – Balanced Use of Knowledge and Experience

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StrategyDriven Decision Making ArticleIt’s the age old question of which is more valuable, knowledge or experience. Those arguing for experience rightfully suggest that ‘the numbers’ can be deceiving and that the nuances of a given circumstance – unaccounted for by broadly applicable models and high-level, quantitative facts – often dictate the best course of action. Those favoring knowledge would argue that no two situations are exactly alike and that the underlying nuanced conditions providing success in the past likely went unrecognized and represent the very differences that will cause an experienced-based decision to go awry. The question is, Who is right? – those favoring knowledge or those favoring experience? Our answer is neither and both. We believe the best decisions are made using a well-proportioned blend of both knowledge and experience.

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StrategyDriven Alternative Selection Forum

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Leaders face the difficult challenge of selecting those few operational activities their organization will pursue from the multitude that are proposed every planning cycle. Collectively, these activities define the company; its culture, its direction, and ultimately its success or failure.

Selecting those activities the organization engages in requires a degree of both art and science. Initiatives pursued should support the organization’s qualitatively defined values, culture, and strategy while at the same time positioning it to maximize quantifiable benefit creation at minimum cost. The resulting portfolio of activities to be performed serves as an input to both the annual and long-range business plans; charting the course for the organization’s future.

Focus of the Alternative Selection Forum

Resources in this forum are dedicated to discussing the principles and practices enabling leaders to most effectively choose those options aligned with the organization’s values and goals while offering a maximum value return to the organization and its stakeholders. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics foundational to effective alternative selection.

Articles

Principles

Best Practices

Warning Flags

Resources

Books

Decision-Making Best Practice 13 – Document the Decision-Making Process

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StrategyDriven Decision Making Article | Decision Making ProcessEvery decision made represents a risk to the organization; some large, others small; some immediate, others latent; some positive, others adverse. Regardless of the impact, it is desirable to have each decision bring optimal benefit to the organization. Achieving these frequent, repeatable, and positive results requires a mechanism to drive consistency in decision-making; consistency that is only achieved through established procedures on which decision-makers are trained and against which performance is evaluated and acceptable behaviors reinforced.

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Management Would be Easy if You Didn’t Have to Deal with People, part 3 of 3

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Conditions for Empowerment

We realize that so far this empowerment process looks fairly easy. Set the goals for everyone, establish their boundaries, and set ‘em all loose.

As you might guess, it isn’t quite that simple. But it’s not too far off really.

Before a manager can put a team member in an empowered environment, the manager must be satisfied that the team member can meet some very specific conditions. They’re quite straightforward, but they are absolutely critical.

There are three steps that we follow to ensure that our employees are correctly empowered – that they have both the responsibility and authority to conduct their activities effectively. We’ve already talked a bit about the first two: establishing goals and boundaries.

The third step is to ensure that the correct conditions exist between the manager and the employee. This third step is critical, but oftentimes it isn’t even considered. We’ve found that without these conditions, the employee and the manager are doomed to failure. There are three of these conditions, all of which are equally important, and all of which must be demonstrated by the employee to the manager:

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About the Author

John Cioffi received his first business education in his family’s restaurant and lodging business. He later held executive positions in several companies, ranging from start-ups to a Fortune 100. He has been a business coach for more than 15 years, is a frequent business speaker, and is a partner in GoalMakers Management Consultants. He received a BA from Colby College, a master’s degree from Dartmouth, and an MBA from Wharton.