Rodger Dean Duncan's Blog, page 9

Does Your Culture Have Know-It-Alls Or Learn-It-Alls?

Culture, it’s been said, eats strategy for lunch.

Why does one auto dealership perform much better than another when both sell the same cars, have access to the same lending resources, and can hire from the same labor pool?

Why does one consulting firm continue to outpace a competitor when both have the same portfolio of services and access to the same kind of clients?

Why does one leader struggle to get top performance from the C-suite team, when the next leader manages to get world-class work ...

Tough Times? This Navy SEAL Can Teach You to Thrive

Every day we hear someone say something like “we’re living in unprecedented times.” If there were ever an “oh, duh” comment, that would be it.

In the age of a worldwide pandemic, it’s hard to find an adjective that does justice to the heartache and damage. As of this writing, some 2.8 million people have died from Covid-19. Literally billions of jobs have been affected. People everywhere are dealing with hardships they never saw coming.

Wherever we find ourselves on the scale of adversity, all o...

Climbing the Leadership Ladder? Some Steps You Can’t Afford to Miss

Dwight Eisenhower gave us great food for thought when he defined leadership as “the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Still, the recipe for effective leadership is one of the most elusive questions in the worlds of relationships and organizational behavior.

It’s safe to say that,10,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers practiced leadership differently than people do today.

But we don’t need to look that far into the past to see how the practice of le...

Struggling to Solve a Problem? Think Like An Alien

If you’re like a lot of people, you’re tired of being told you have biases. But you do. We all do.

Some of those biases affect the way we solve problems. They can be so entrenched that we remain stuck in well-worn patterns of thinking. The result is missed opportunities.

Three innovative professors at the Institute for Management Development can help. Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade give us a make-sense formula for solving big problems in any field. Their book is A.L.I.E.N. T...

How to Prepare for a Work Future You Can’t Even See

In the words of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, we live in a moment of history where change is so fast-paced that we “begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.”

Change is not just faster. It’s also exploding in quantity and magnitude. Experts say we can expect more change in our lifetimes than has occurred since the beginning of civilization more than ten millennia ago.

Trying to keep up with change can feel like getting trapped on a runaway treadmill. Managing it can be even hard...

Preparing for a Work Future You Can’t Even See

In the words of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, we live in a moment of history where change is so fast-paced that we “begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.”

Change is not just faster. It’s also exploding in quantity and magnitude. Experts say we can expect more change in our lifetimes than has occurred since the beginning of civilization more than ten millennia ago.

Trying to keep up with change can feel like getting trapped on a runaway treadmill. Managing it can be even hard...

How Covid Is Teaching (Some) Leaders How to Lead

Every day we see headlines on how Covid-19 continues to affect our lives. When, and how, will schools return to in-person instruction? When, and how, will businesses get back on track? What will the “new normal” even look like?

Regardless of their stations in life, people around the globe are sharing in the adversity. Some have certainly had a tougher time than others. But nobody has managed to avoid the impact of the worst health pandemic in any living person’s memory.

But there’s a silver lini...

Pandemic Pivots: Adjusting to New Realities

In ways most of us never imagined, the Covid pandemic has disrupted virtually every facet of our lives.

It’s changed how we buy and sell products and services. It’s changed how we interact with customers and clients (not to mention our own families). It’s changed how we collaborate with colleagues and team members. It’s affected sports and entertainment, and even our national and international politics.

In short, the pandemic is a worldwide calamity with stubborn staying power.

But there’s good ...

Job Craft: Change Your Work Into Something You Love

If you’re like millions of other people riding the pandemic roller coaster, you’re re-thinking your world of work.

You’re likely using technology in ways you didn’t imagine a year ago. Your morning commute may be no more than those 25 steps from the kitchen table to that folding table you set up in the guest bedroom. It’s probably been months since you shook hands with a client (or anyone else, for that matter). You sometimes use the term “new normal,” but you can’t be sure what that really mean...

Can Your Conversations Use Some ‘Design’ Work?

We’re living in a world where civil conversation seems to be a lost art. People are polarized on virtually every issue imaginable. And the talking heads on cable news seem determined to out shout and out insult each other. One-way social media rants merely add to the poison.

Fred Dust wants to change that trajectory. He’s author of Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Conversation.

Rather than approach his subject from an academic perspective, Fred uses a designer’s set of...