
The Merger & Acquisition Leader’s Sub-Playbook #5 – Governance
Per our earlier article on A Merger & Acquisition Leader’s Playbook For Success, avoid the traps of 1) poor strategic focus, 2) poor cultural integration and/or 3) poor delivery of synergies by leveraging the full playbook and its seven...

How Next-Level Decision Rights Lead To Better Decisions
Most decision rights conversations are about who gets to make which decisions. Applying next level strategic selling logic takes into account economic, user and technical buyers and coaches, and encourages them to work together to improve instead of block decisions....

Helping Colleagues With Post-Covid Stress Disorder (PCSD)
Post-Covid Stress Disorder is a sub-set of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder caused by the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Leave treating its symptoms to others. Put your efforts into helping colleagues improve their stress reduction skills, and regain self-confidence...

Three Keys To Improving Accountability (And Your Leadership)
“Accountability” is on every Corporate Buzzword Bingo sheet. It’s like “strategy,” “synergy”, and “collaboration,” in that it means different things to different people in different situations. Let’s start with Webster’s definition: “Answerable or responsible to the...

Why Every Team Needs A Periodic Scrum – Live And In Person
Not every working group needs to meet live. That’s because not every working group needs to function as a team. Many working groups can do fine working mostly independently, coordinating communication and learning as appropriate. By definition, teams are made up of...

Why Managing Hand-Offs Is The Most Essential Skill For High Performing Teams
When some teams of high performers don’t quite gel, it’s due to breakdowns in communication. Each member may have the strengths required. They may mean well. But they’re not working well together. Look to the points of intersection, the hand-offs for the fix....

The Mindset Change Required To Make Virtual Team Rooms Work
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people worked together in the same physical space. They could all look at the same things in the same dimension at the same time and use words, tone and body language to communicate. Now workers are scattered all over the...

Why Every Corporate Group Needs Its Own Garbage Collector
Teams beat individuals every time. And the most effective teams are made up of uniquely strong individuals working interdependently to complement and leverage each other’s strengths. So, interdependence is a good thing. Right? Certainly. But it comes at the cost of...

The Difference Between Executive Onboarding And Performance Failure
While there is certainly an overlap, there are important differences between executive onboarding and performance failures. The vast majority of people that fail in jobs fail for one of three reasons: poor fit, poor delivery, or poor adjustment to a change down the road.
Poor fit is always a failure of selection, due diligence or attitude during onboarding.
Poor delivery is an onboarding failure if it’s caused by getting up to speed too slowing and a performance failure later on.
Poor adjustment is an onboarding failure if it’s rooted in not yet having built a network of trusted advisors to point out the need to adjust or how to adjust. It’s a performance failure if it’s rooted in a fundamental inability to see changes or listen to others.

Enforcing: The Second Of The Only Four Ways To Succeed As A CEO
Chief enforcers are exactly what’s required to lead a production-focused organization.