CEO Roundtable Articles
Bob’s Enthusiasm
Bob made more than my day when he enthusiastically ended our phone conversation with, “I can’t believe that more CEOs don’t have something like the CEO Roundtable! Why can’t you tell them?” Every marketing professional will tell you that the best possible...
Find the Secret to More Time
A guy I was interviewing for membership in our CEO Peer Group felt the need to tell me that “time is my most precious resource”. I felt like responding; “No shit, Sherlock, do you think any CEO has time to burn?”
What Does Improv Theater Have to Teach Us About Leadership?
In a two-day session in late January, improv actress and psychologist Amy Goldfarb posed the question “What does improv have to teach us about leadership?” This short video provides a recap of the retreat. We began to explore the answer by first...
What are some things that instantly tell you a team is dysfunctional?
There is one quick question you can ask to determine if your team is dysfunctional. The question is: “Do you have a team?” If you have a team, it is dysfunctional. Simple as that. People are not naturally wired to work in teams, and our educational system normally...
Management Without Authority
An obviously frustrated Project Manager asks: “How can I communicate authoritatively in a workplace when the members of the team do not report to me?” This is the common “Responsibility without Authority” problem. How do you execute your responsibility without having...
How do I manage rebel co-workers within a small team?
I’d say the question reveals a different understanding of what a team is than mine. Your issue is with co-workers, not with a team. If you and your co-workers have one identified goal to achieve together, then you have a team. If you don’t, then you are perhaps just...
“What an Impact!” … A Review of “How Customers Buy and Why they Don’t”
“The speaker and subject matter were so timely in our process of Sales and Marketing planning. We scrapped everything we were going to do … and started fresh after the meeting. What an impact!” JM
Building Trust in Teams
Trust is the most fundamental and the most difficult to achieve element of an effective team. If you are interested in the topic, read Patrick Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” where he builds the pyramid of the characteristics of a well-functioning team, the foundation of which is trust.
Business Budgeting: Fortune Telling with Commitments
While no one likes to put their stamp on delivering the future, there are ways to make the imperative of forecasting more manageable. Since budgeting is a central part of most businesses, we might as well figure out how to do it with the least pain, and the most...
Victoria’s Pajamas … and Leadership
At a recent CEO Roundtable meeting, Suzanne raised an issue concerning her new senior manager. To date, all of her reports have been less mature and less experienced and she knows how to manage them. But this new guy is different, and she considers him, in many...
- The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson:
This is a silly little book. It is also an effective little book. By telling a few simple parables, the author Blakeley demonstrates the simplicity of the managers job, but the difficulty of doing it. A young protagonist (presumably the author) interviews a fellow identified only as “The One Minute Manager” and a few of his direct reports. Each sheds a bit of light on their particularly simple system of management, consisting of:
1. 250 word written goals
2. One minute praisings
3. One minute reprimands
The goals are simple enough, and there are some rules about how to administer the praise and reprimand, which emphasize clear expression of joy or disappointment and affirmation in the case of reprimand that the disappointment is in the behavior, or result, and not the individual.
The message for me is that the job of management is different than the jobs being managed, and a job in and of itself. This is a central theme in most books on management, including this one.
CEO Roundtable is made up of private, peer advisory groups of 8 to 12 members from non-competing companies. These peer groups provide a forum for invigorating exchanges of information, ideas, and insights.
