Mark Miller's Blog, page 2

Today’s Challenge: Team Size

One of the many decisions every leader must make is what structure will best enable his or her organization to accomplish its work. If you decide a team approach makes sense, then you get to wrestle with the question… How many people should be on a team?

The answer is: there’s no right answer. However, if you’re trying to create a high performance team charged with managing work and improving performance, a smaller team increases your likelihood of success – Five to ten members is a good rule...

You’re Not Crazy… Leadership Is Hard

Leadership is hard! You may read these words and think: “Is this supposed to be news?” It was to me. As a young leader, I had the misplaced belief that if I learned to lead well, it would be easy. What I’ve discovered – if I learn to lead well, I’ll be more effective and have greater impact, but it still won’t be easy.

Does leadership have to be hard?

Yes, the role we play will always be hard. That’s what we signed up for. And, if we were honest with ourselves we’d probably confess, the diffic...

Invest in Something That Will Outlive You

We just finished our annual Leadership Talent Reviews. If you’re not familiar with the idea, it’s a very straightforward concept. The process involves a systematic review of all leaders in an organization.

Leadership Talent Reviews are not a new idea. Most organizations do this in one form or another. If yours doesn’t, perhaps you should start. Here are a few of the many benefits we’ve experienced:

We calibrate on what’s expected of our leaders. We use the SERVE model as our baseline for conver...

Germany 7 – Brazil 1

I don’t follow soccer closely. However, it’s hard not to get sucked in to the global phenomenon called the World Cup. Nor is it possible to miss the significance of a margin of victory of 6 points in a game where ONE goal is like finding a four-leaf clover. And, it’s hard to escape the fact Brazil had not lost a competitive match on home soil in 39 years – unbelievable!

Even if you’re not a sports fan, there’s a lesson here for us. You and I must learn to deal with defeat. Leaders don’t always...

The 5 Levers of Change (Part 5) Performance Management

This is the last post in my series on the five levers of change. Please don’t mistake the placement of this fifth lever with its value. If we use the first four levers of change: Communications, Measurement, Resource Allocation and Reward and Recognition, and fail to embrace the practices of Performance Management, our change efforts are still in jeopardy .

Performance management is the process in which you reach agreement with individual members of your team regarding who will do what by when...

Today’s Challenge: Friend or Boss?

One of my current projects involves traveling around the country speaking to audiences filled with predominantly young leaders. Today’s Challenge came from this group. However, the question is not confined to young leaders…Can I be someone’s boss and their friend?

Although friend and boss may be a paradox, the answer is yes – you can be both. It is not only possible, I believe it’s desirable to have deep friendships at work.

First, the case for friends at work…

For most of us, we spend more waki...

The 5 Levers of Change (Part 4) Reward & Recognition

“What is honored in a country is cultivated there.”

Plato

How do you honor the people in your organization? A couple of years ago, I was making a focused effort to improve in this arena. I knew intuitively different people place different value on various types of recognition. However, to truly honor people, I needed to know specifically what was of value to themindividually.

My next step was to set a meeting with all the staff members in my department, temporary and part-time employees too. I a...

One More Time… Please Help Me Select a Title for My New Book

Many of you saw my post on June 10th asking you to help select a title for my new book. The response was outstanding. So much so, we collected well over 100 additional suggestions for what we might title the book.

Before we make our final selection, we want to hear from you one more time. If you’ll take two minutes and answer just seven questions, that would be outstanding! Here’s the link to the survey:https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BKJH7LS

We’d love to have all the surveys completed by 5:00 p...

Today’s Challenge: Success

Success is a lousy teacher. The best leaders know this and are always on guard against complacency. This week’s question comes from a leader who has just completed a season of success. She is concerned her team won’t stay motivated. Today’s Challenge: How do you keep your team fully engaged in the wake of success?

This is a very thoughtful question. Most leaders are focused on “What’s next?” as we should be. However, the leader who posed this question has an intuitive sense, a let down could b...

What Do You Do When There’s Nothing You Can Do?

Leaders love making things happen. We love to challenge existing boundaries and attack the status quo. We make our living creating the future. What happens when you encounter a situation in which there’s nothing you can do?

This out of control feeling comes in all shapes and sizes – maybe you’ve been blind-sided by a competitor, or new government regulations have impacted your business. If you work in a non-profit organization, you may feel helpless when your largest donor walks away. There ar...