Manage to Lead now available as interactive, digital content powered by the leading provider for higher education textbooks.

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Peter DiGiammarino

Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World is now available as an interactive digital workbook at inkling.com.

Click on the book cover icon to access its catalog entry on inkling.com. Download the free chapter to try it out on any iPad, any iPhone, or on any Mac or PC using the Chrome browser.

Manage to Lead will soon also be available in print and as an e-book at Amazon. Access from Android devices is slated for later in 2013

The interactive, digital workbook has:

Work problems,
Templates,
Animations,
Assessments,
Videos,
Graphics, and
Executive team exercises and meeting agendas.

Continue reading →

How Core Leaders can get clear about what problem their organization solves for whom to get and stay aligned for peak performance.

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Peter DiGiammarino

The following blog post has been upgraded and incorporated into an enhanced interactive, digital workbook called Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World. IntelliVen visitors are invited to click here to view the updated and improved content on Inkling.

Core Leaders who all describe the problem their organization solves for whom in the same way are apt to provide more consistent guidance and direction and so increase the odds of better performance across the board.

To get clear or to test for clarity, invite each Core Leader to:

Read and reflect on background related to the importance of getting clear. Continue reading →

How to set direction when the leader is not sure about where to head next.

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

A leader sets direction, aligns resources, and motivates

Figure 1

action as suggested by the panels presented in Figure 1. Another way to put it is that a leader develops, holds, nurtures, communicates, and drives to achieve a vision. As in Figure 2, it helps to think of the leader holding a map, like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s map that is always changing,

Figure 2

making sense of it, and navigating the course with those led looking on.

Wise leaders constantly check with their top team to confirm that they are headed toward the same goals, in the same way, and for the same reasons. The best leaders are always open to input from their top team to tweak goals and plans along the way.

Clarity starts with the leader. If the leader is not clear then no one else can be clear. A leader either: Continue reading →

How to find free, simple, and effective ways to optimize employee performance.

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

Jose Luis Romero, who lives and works in Mexico and who is an expert in the area of Employee Performance Optimization, teaches middle and upper level managers free, simple and the most effective ways to optimize the performance of their employees.

Jose Luis’ content is interesting and useful. For example, see his collection of mission statements and subscribe to his “Leader Newsletter” to receive – at no cost – practical leadership tools once a month. To subscribe, follow this link: http://www.Skills2Lead.com/educational_leadership_articles.html

How to get clear about what problem an organization solves for whom, how.

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

All businesses and many, if not most or even all, other organizations ought to get, and stay, crystal clear about whose problem they solve, how. It is common for leaders to describe their organizations in terms of one or two but not all three dimensions because thinking about the three dimensions of market, problem and solution all at the same time challenges the mind and is hard for most people to do for any length of time.

The following graphic presents a way to visualize an organization in terms of the problem it solves (or why anyone needs what the organization provides), for whom (market), and Continue reading →

How to get, and stay, in control of operations.

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

Leaders who are in control of their operations compare their organization’s actual performance results to:

Past results to know whether their organization is trending up, down or sideways.
The results other organizations that are doing things similar to theirs achieve in order to know how well they are doing relative to industry benchmarks, especially relative to those who do best what they are doing. Continue reading →

How to define terms related to strategy to help everyone stay on the same page.

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

The following offers a useful way to think about strategy and matters directly related to it:

Strategy is what people in an organization plan to do in order to “win” whatever game they are playing.

Strategic thinking is how decisions and actions are made in the immediate-term in a manner that is mindful of long-term implications and consistent with a strategy. Continue reading →

How to outline a strategy for an organization by answering five questions.

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Peter DiGiammarino

The problem with the word strategy is that there are many different ways to use the word and it conjures up different things for different people in different contexts. See for example the key Questions on Strategy addressed in the Master of Science in Organization Development class on Organization Analysis and Strategy at American University in Washington, DC.

When asked “What is your strategy?” you might want to ask in reply “for what?” because every organization has many strategies. There is a strategy for selling, delivery, product management, product development, recruiting, people development, growth, and so on. Each strategy addresses how things are done now and how they will change to achieve a certain envisioned future.

It helps to answer the following questions when laying out your organization’s strategy:

What problem do you solve for whom, how? This gets at the three dimensions of any organization:

Market the organization serves,
Problem that market has, and
Solution the organization provides the market to solve the problem. Continue reading →

Intelligent Strategies. Successful Ventures.

Category Archives: Get Clear