Eric Jacobson

Archive for the ‘Leadership Books’ Category


50 Ways To Brainstorm

In Brainstorming, Effective Communications, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Management on February 15, 2012 at 9:08 pm

According to Brian Cole Miller in his new book, Quick Brainstorming Activities For Busy Managers, there are 50 ways to improve your brainstorming at your company or in your organization.

My favorite is the Paper Swap brainstorming activity:

  • A brainstorming technique where participants write their input on separate pieces of paper; then they swap papers and continue to add input.

Miller provides 49 other techniques in his book (released by Amacom last month), all of which take less than 15 minutes to complete.

For all brainstorming sessions, Miller reminds leaders that you should:

  • Focus on quantity not quality
  • Don’t allow criticism
  • Encourage wild ideas
  • Combine ideas for more ideas

Miller also suggests that the best starting question for a brainstorming session is a Focus Question — one that:

  • Uses the participants’ own language
  • Is personal to the participants and not the organization
  • Evokes responses with imagery

This is a must-read book for any manager who needs to effectively lead brainstorming sessions.

Thanks to the author for providing a preview copy of the book to me.


Are Your Supervisors Driving Away Your Employees?

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employee Satisfaction, Engaging Employees, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Motivating Employees on February 15, 2012 at 8:08 pm

One section in Richard Finnegan’s book called, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, compares traditional thinking versus new ways to think about retention and the vital role supervisors play in retaining employees.  For example:

Traditional Thinking:  Human Resources-driven programs like pay and recognition are essential for retention.

Rethinking Retention:  Ineffective supervisors trump programs and drive turnover.

Traditional Thinking:  All aspects of company culture contribute equally to retention.

Rethinking Retention:  Supervisor-employee relationships have a disproportionate impact on retention; the supervisor is the company.

Traditional Thinking:  Centralized communication and career programs impact all employees equally.

Rethinking Retention:  Supervisors drive what employees know and learn and help them prepare for careers.

Are your supervisors helping to retain employees or driving them away?


Great Leaders Grow

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Management on February 9, 2012 at 9:08 pm

This week, Ken Blanchard’s and Mark Miller’s book, Great Leaders Grow, hit the brick and mortar and online bookstores.

In honor of the book release I welcome guest blogger Ken Blanchard.

How to Evaluate Your Leadership Style

By Ken Blanchard, Co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life

Today, I’m going to give a short, one-question quiz. Here’s the question: How do you rate as a leader?

I don’t ask this question flippantly. It is a question I’ve asked countless people at the leadership seminars we conduct.

As leaders, most people rank themselves as being very close to a minor deity or at least Mr. or Ms. Human Relations. Seldom do leaders give themselves low marks. Strangely enough, when the tables are turned and people are asked to rank their boss’s leadership style, we often find many supervisors graded as being adequate, merely OK, or at worst, office autocrats who depend heavily on the often-referenced “seagull management” technique as their sole line of attack — they leave their people alone until something goes wrong, and then they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump all over everyone, and fly out.

More often than not, we find that leaders lull themselves into thinking they are top-flight leaders because they think they use a supportive or coaching style, which someone told them are “good” leadership styles. Not too surprisingly, this isn’t the way they are seen by those in their department, office or store.

To get a true and accurate answer about the question above, it is necessary for you as a supervisor to honestly determine how your employees perceive your leadership style. These are the folks who know you best. They have first-hand experience with your leadership style and operate on their own perceptions about it. They are the best judges of your managerial effectiveness. However, getting an employee or subordinate to give his or her honest feedback on your leadership style is difficult. People fear being the messenger who will get shot for bearing bad news. Hence, they are naturally reluctant to be totally candid.

Employees are sharp observers. In the past, they may have gone to their leader and made an honest suggestion such as, “Ken, I think our Thursday afternoon meetings are a waste of time.” If the supervisor answers with an outburst by saying, “What do you mean a waste of time? Are you kidding? Those meetings are important,” it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one thing the leader doesn’t want to hear is the truth.

It is important to remember that when people you supervise tell you what they honestly think about your style of leadership, they’re really giving you a gift. When someone gives you a gift, what is the first thing you should say? “Thank you,” of course! Then it’s a very good idea to follow up by saying, “Is there anything else you think I should know?” When a person learns that you won’t become defensive or hostile when he or she gives you an honest evaluation about your style, you’ll find that you’ll be given many nuggets of truth which are extremely valuable. My advice would be to encourage people to give (feedback) at the office, and to give often!

Just remember, what you think about your own leadership style really doesn’t matter. In addition, there is no one correct style, nor is there a “good” or a “bad” style. Rather, style is judged by those immediately influenced by it. It’s your people’s response to your style that matters. If you are getting the right response consistently — high productivity and morale — then you’re doing just fine. If not, then perhaps it’s your style that needs changing, not your employees.

Ken Blanchard, co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life, is cofounder and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies. He is the author or coauthor of 50 books that have sold more than 20 million copies, including the iconic One Minute Manager®.

As originally published on “How We Lead.”  © 2012 Ken Blanchard, co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life


How To Make E-mail Communication More Effective In The Workplace

In Company Culture, E-mail Communication, Effective Communications, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Skills, Management on February 9, 2012 at 9:02 pm

Are you leading an organization where e-mail communication is ineffective?

Here are some wise guidelines that Verizon Wireless has used to promote effective, efficient and responsible e-mail use within its company.

You can find these guidelines in the book, Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?, written by Denny F. Strigl, former CEO and President of Verizon Wireless.

  • E-mail should bring closure to work, not create more work.
  • Before you write an e-mail, ask yourself if calling or visiting the recipient will bring better communication.
  • Keep e-mails short.  Make your point in just the subject line or the space in the preview pane.
  • Don’t assume other people are staring at their screens, waiting for your e-mail.
  • If just one person needs information or clarification, don’t send your e-mail to a group.
  • Never send e-mail when you’re angry.
  • Assume anything you put in writing will be leaked to the press or to your competitors.
  • Stay accountable.  Sending an e-mail doesn’t transfer responsibility.
  • E-mail is never an acceptable excuse for not getting something done.  If you need a reply to an e-mail before you can do your job, get the information another way.
  • Don’t spend more than five minutes dealing with an e-mail.  When you go over this limit, stop and make a phone call.
  • Don’t judge how much you’ve accomplished by how many e-mails you’ve sent.


Be A Manager Who Makes Decisions

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Making Decisions, Management on January 27, 2012 at 7:59 pm

A manager who can’t make a decision or who can’t make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager’s team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a “wrong” decision. These managers don’t necessarily request needless data, but simply just never decide.

Successful managers gather the data from their employees, make any truly necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision…knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white “right or “wrong,” but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.


Leaders: Tips For How To Reach Your Goals

In General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Motivating Employees, Setting Goals on January 12, 2012 at 7:55 pm

Social psychologist, Heidi Grant Halvorson, wrote Succeed to help you understand how goals work, what tends to go wrong, and what you can do to reach your goals or to help others reach theirs.

Because many of us may soon start struggling to fulfill our New Year’s Resolutions (goals), Halvorson’s book, packed with the findings from her own research, along with the most useful tips from academic journals and handbooks, is a timely read.

In her 260-page book, Halvorson covers:

•  How to set a goal that you will pursue even in the face of adversity.

•  How to avoid the kind of positive thinking that makes people fail.

•  How to create an environment that will help you win.

“Setting goals is important,” said Halvorson, “But that’s not the whole story. Because how you set your goals–the way you think about whatever it is you want to do, and how you will get there–is every bit as important.”

Halvorson recommends:

•  Making your goal as specific as possible.

•  Making your goal difficult, while still being realistic.

•  Being sure you don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal.

•  Making sure you think about both the wonderful things that will happen if you succeed and the obstacles that stand in your way.

•  Filling your environment with reminders and triggers that will keep your unconscious mind working toward your goal, even when your conscious mind is distracted by other things.

•  Remembering why the goal is important to you. Also, choosing prevention goals, focusing on what you could lose if you fail.

She also said that, “One of the most important things you can do to reach any difficult goal is know when to ask for and accept help.”

And, if you are a team leader or business leader and you have the task of trying to get other people to adopt the goals assigned to them, Halvorson suggests you:

•  Try giving your employee or team member a sense of personal control. It helps when people can choose from several options–even a choice between two goals is still a choice.

•  Keep in mind that people are motivated to achieve a goal only when they feel it has value and when the value is clear. So, have your employees participate in decision making and goal setting.

•  Ask employees to commit publicly to reaching a goal. That will increase their motivation.

Halvorson stresses that it’s vitally important that employees understand the rationale behind goals given to them by their leaders. They need to know how to answer:

• Why is the goal worth pursing?

• How will I benefit from it?

“Remember that people are motivated to achieve a goal only when they feel it has value. When the value is clear, you’ll have fewer problems getting people on board and fully committed to succeed,” explained Halvorson.

Perhaps most important, Succeed, drives home the fact that persistence is key when working to reach a goal.

• Persistence comes more easily when a person believes more in effort and the effort to get better, rather than believing in ability.

I appreciate Halvorson sending me a complimentary copy of her book.  It’s a good read.


How To Identify A Leader During An Interview

In General Leadership Skills, Hiring, Hiring Great People, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Management on January 7, 2012 at 8:31 pm

The next time you are interviewing a candidate and you want to access  their leadership skills, consider asking the candidate these questions:

  • What personal qualities define you as a leader?  Describe a situation when these qualities helped you lead others.
  • Give an example of when you demonstrated good leadership.
  • What is the toughest group from which you’ve had to get cooperation?
  • Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas?  What was your approach?  Did it work?
  • Describe a situation in which you had to change your leadership style to achieve the goal?
  • One leadership skill is the ability to accommodate different views  in the workplace, regardless of what they are.  What have you done to  foster a wide number of views in your work environment?

Thanks to Sharon Armstrong, author of The Essential HR Handbook, for these helpful questions!


What Southwest Airlines Taught Us In 2011

In Company Culture, Customer Service, Employee Satisfaction, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Books, Leadership Quotes, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Listening Skills, Management, Motivating Employees on December 31, 2011 at 6:31 am

Southwest Airlines celebrated its 40th this year and was kind enough to share in its in-flight magazine 40 lessons it learned since 1971.  The lessons provide good tips for business leaders.

If you missed the full list, here are some of the highlights:

  • Invent your own culture and put a top person in charge of it.
  • A crisis can contain the germ of a big idea.
  • Simplicity has value.  For Southwest, simplicity means using 737s for most of its fleet, which makes maintenance more cost-effective and allows more efficient training for flight crews and ground crews.
  • Remember your chief mission.
  • Take your business, not yourself, seriously.
  • Put the worker first. For Southwest, that meant being the first U.S. airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, in 1974. Employees now own 13 percent of the airline.
  • The web ain’t cool, it’s a tool. Southwest was the first U.S. airline to establish a home page. By 2010, Southwest.com boasted more unique visitors  than any other airline, and ranked as the second largest travel site.
  • Get Green.  That means for Southwest embracing conservation.
  • Manage permanence.  Southwest knows what not to change, even when it’s managing change.
  • Keep the idea simple enough to draw on a napkin.
  • Never rest on your laurels.
  • It’s about customer service, not scalability.
  • Promote from within.
  • Recognize your luck.

One can learn a lot of Southwest! Thank You!


6 Ways To Discover What Motivates Your Employees

In Effective Communications, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Listening Skills, Management, Motivating Employees on December 17, 2011 at 8:48 am

When you meet with your employee during her annual performance appraisal take time to determine what motivates her when it comes to her career development.  Motivation changes over time and changes depending on where the individual is in her career.

So, to determine what motives her, author Paul Falcone recommends you ask her to rank-order her priorities in terms of the following six guidelines:

  • If you had to chose two categories from the following six, which would you say hold the most significance to you career-wise?

1.  Career progression through the ranks and opportunities for promotion and advancement.

2.  Lateral assumption of increased job responsibilities and skill building (e.g. rotational assignments).

3.  Acquisition of new technical skills (typically requiring outside training and certification).

4.  Development of stronger leadership, managerial, or administrative skills.

5.  Work-life balance.

6.  Money and other forms of compensation.

Then, do your best to match her next year’s goals and objectives with projects, duties, assignments, activities, actions tied to what motivates her most.

You’ll find many more helpful tips in Falcone’s new book, 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals.

Note:  Thanks to the book publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

, , ,

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ask About Your Nonprofit

In Company Culture, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Nonprofit Leadership on December 15, 2011 at 10:26 pm

If you lead a nonprofit organization, the one hour it will take you to read Peter F. Drucker’s book, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, will be well worth it.

  • This book may fundamentally change the way you work and lead your organization.

Perhaps one of most challenging questions Drucker asks the reader is:

“Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area?“

Because, Drucker argues that need alone does not justify continuing. Nor does tradition, if your results are not sufficiently outstanding.

If you volunteer for a nonprofit or are seeking employment at a nonprofit, this book is also an insightful and inspiring read.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.