Drucker - Again!

In preparing some work for a client this week, I returned to the work of Peter Drucker for inspiration. Here are his thoughts on what makes an effective executive:

• Ask what needs to be done
• Ask what’s right for the business
• Develop action plans
• Take responsibility for decisions
• Take responsibility for communicating
• Focus on opportunities, not problems
• Run productive meetings
• Say ‘We’ not ‘I’

I have always enjoyed the simplicity of his ideas - to me this makes them more useable. There is much to read behind these headlines but you could literally start by doing these 8 things and not read another word.

If you would like to read more though, take a look here.

Process AND Outcome

Take a look at his HBR article on the perils of goal setting. This is a great reminder to us all that we need a healthy balance of process and outcome goals in our work and personal lives if we are to deliver success through quality and support the behaviours we would like to see.

Winning Parenting?

My daughter's swim club sent this article on Winning Parenting to all parents last week to remind them of their responsibilities. Some great tips in here on supporting strengths development and working in collaboration with coaches. And some excellent messages for managers?

Discovering What Works

I had a super week with the Cybex International Sales Team just last week in Dubai. Here are the team taking some post meeting recreation in the desert! 3 days spent discovering what works, building on what works and making plans for delivering even bigger successes in 2013.

Monty's Strengths

I have always been a Monty fan and it was wonderful to see him back to his best in the last test. Here is the story of his - strengths based - return to the top.

Planning to Think Positively

Here's a nice re-working of the principles of challenging limiting beliefs in Fast Company Magazine. I wonder what place understanding and leading with strengths plays in overcoming negative emotions? Research would suggest that pausing to reflect on your strengths and talents, reviewing the evidence for them and making a plan to lead with them, can change the mindset we adopt in the face of high challenge? Could we add this to the list of ways to 'release the anchors'?

Strengths and the Organisation

In 1997, David Maister told us in True Professionalism that in order for a team to provide value above and beyond the talents of the individuals within it, it needed to provide the right conditions for talent to flourish. He offers some possible ways in which we can do this:

• provide professionals with the benefit of shared skills and experiences within the practice group
• back up the professional with investments in shared tools, methodologies, templates, research, etc
• facilitate access to the skills of others in different disciplines
• establish procedures to produce well trained junior professionals
• achieve a high level of referrals, cross-selling, and clients of other professionals 
• provide superior support staff and systems, to facilitate conduct of the practice
• instill a system of supportive, but challenging, coaching to bring out the best in each professional
• create an emotionally supportive 'collegial' environment
• provide for diversification of personal risk - in good times and bad
• establish a powerful brand name that makes marketing easier

Upon re-reading some of his work over the weekend, I was struck both by the 'obvious' nature of this advice and the relative scarcity of practice. I wonder what we are working on as leaders, this week, that will enable the talent within our teams to do their best?