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Category Archives: Improve / Turnaround
Let’s Be Scientific
As leaders, we are required to constantly evaluate evidence and make decisions. In doing so, we often succumb to “winging it” and making decisions on the fly, trusting our gut. While this might work for some decisions, it does not … Continue reading
Field Centric
As leaders, we can get wrapped up in so many different activities and meetings – meeting with the finance, human resources or marketing department; talking to investors, banks and insurance companies; strategic planning; looking at acquisition candidates or joint venture … Continue reading
Make Molehills
“Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.” Unfortunately, too many leaders ignore this wise advice. Instead, every minor issue becomes a major problem that needs to be addressed and resolved now. Why? Leaders make mountains out of molehills for … Continue reading
Seek Out the ‘Useful Answer’
“When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” Dalai Lama In my company, as in many others, we have a formal system to review work that we have done. Whether called post-project reviews, re-caps, or post-mortems, these reviews give the people … Continue reading
The First Two Steps in Process Improvement
Most process improvement initiatives fail miserably. First, they do not improve the processes they were supposed to improve. Second, they waste managerial and employee time, effort and attention. Or, third, the process may be improved; but this improvement does not … Continue reading
Top Three Things to Do Today to Be a Better Leader
To build a better business, we need to be better leaders. This does not mean we need to rush out and get more training or education or bring in a consultant (absolutely not!!). Instead, we need to focus on the … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Perform / Execution
Tagged Follow Up, Leadership, Positivity, Simplicity
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What To Think About
Studies from social psychologists have concluded that the media (contrary to common opinion) is not effective at changing how we think. Instead, it is quite effective in determining what we think about. As leaders, it can be helpful to focus … Continue reading
Use the ‘Base Rate’ for Better Decisions
The IT project took twice as long as planned. The construction project to expand the plant went over budget. Why does this always happen? Too many decisions are made with too much self-confidence and too much optimism. As a result, … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Personal Success
Tagged Base Rate, Decision Making, Richard Thaler
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10 Fundamentals of Continuous Improvement
When continuous improvement is a fundamental part of our company culture, our business gets better every day and will soon out-run and out-perform the competition. Over 100 years ago, Henry Ford wrote: The competitor to be feared is the one … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Perform / Execution
Tagged Continuous Improvement
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Crisis Leadership
As I write this blog, we are in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Each day brings changes to how and where we can conduct business; we have little visibility into what the next month, three months, or six months … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Perform / Execution
Tagged Crisis, Leadership, Turnaround, Uncertainty
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To Improve Our Meetings, We Need to Do Our Homework
The consultant, Stan Sipes, once commented: “The most common weakness I see in organizations is the lack of work that is done in a meeting.” Today, more than ever, so little work is done in meetings because no one has … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Improve / Turnaround, Perform / Execution
Tagged Communication, Effectiveness, Homework, Meetings
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Survival of the Fittest and Leadership Flexibility
Hawaiians and other Polynesians are the descendants of peoples who traveled by boat from East Asia to settle their islands. Those most likely to survive the long and arduous journey were those with “thrifty genes”. They were those ancestors who … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Perform / Execution
Tagged Focus, Innovation, Learning, Management, Productivity, Vision
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Four Ways To Do Training Right
In corporate America, approximately $100 billion is spent each year on training. Yet, many studies show that training is only 10% – 15% effective. As Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer writes, this is… the great training robbery Yet, training … Continue reading
Communicate in One Page
Idea Summary To run our businesses more effectively, most documents and reports in our businesses (including summaries, plans, reviews, and analysis) should be kept to one page. Perspective Businesses are awash in information, specifically reports, analysis, weekly updates or … Continue reading
Experiment… A Little
To move our companies forward, we need to experiment. We need to try out new products, new sales/ marketing strategies, new processes, and new leadership styles. We cannot be certain if all of these will work. But, to not experiment … Continue reading
Avoiding Micromanagement
Guilty as charged!! I confess that I do, at times, micromanage. However, soon after slipping into micromanagement, I become aware (yet again) that micromanagement is truly just mis-management. It would have been far better for me to avoid the trap … Continue reading
Checklists
Several years ago, a medical surgeon, Atul Gawande, wrote a best-selling book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, that discusses the advantages of using checklists in all types of activities from surgery to disaster recovery to business. As … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Perform / Execution, Sales and Marketing
Tagged Communication, Focus, Learning, Productivity, Project Management, Training
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Leading When Overwhelmed
It happens to all of us. A direct report either gets promoted, quits or gets fired, and we have to manage his or her direct reports in addition to all of our other duties. We are assigned to a special … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership, Perform / Execution
Tagged Communication, Efficiency, Leadership, Turnaround
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Think Twice and Do Once
Every Do-It-Yourselfer knows the carpenter’s advice: Measure twice cut once. In successful businesses, a similar recommendation holds true: Think twice and do once. To so many of us, immediate action appears to be essential: We are just doing it! We … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Improve / Turnaround, Perform / Execution
Tagged Focus, Productivity, Project Management
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Communicate Upward
As managers, we need to encourage each of our employees to keep us informed about what is really going on in our companies, both the good and the bad. We need to be kept in the loop about the larger … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Improve / Turnaround, Team / People
Tagged Communication, Honesty, Team, Turnaround, Upward communication
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David M. Shedd - Move Your Company Forward 