This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. Imagine steering a ship in tumultuous seas without a compass—this is like leading a business without core values guiding the way. You might eventually achieve your goals, but it might take a long time and involve unnecessary and costly detours. In...

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This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. In the culinary world, excellence is often measured by the ability to create unique flavor profiles, master cooking techniques, and present dishes that are visually appealing. Chefs spend years honing their skills, experimenting with ingredients, and perfecting their recipes in order...

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Hello and welcome to another edition of State of Readiness. I am your host Joseph Paris. My guest today is Innocent Hadebe, Director of Business Excellence for Chick-fil-A Corporate.  I met Innocent like a meet a great many people and that would be through LinkedIn.  Of course my initial attraction to Innocent was that we...

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Summary.   Visionary leadership is widely seen as key to strategic change. That’s because visionary leadership does not just set the strategic direction — it tells a story about why the change is worth pursuing and inspires people to embrace the change. But research finds that the positive impact of visionary leadership breaks down when middle managers...

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Motivated reasoning can lead people to believe everything’s fine despite evidence to the contrary. Here’s how to counter emotions with facts. Despite their best intentions, executives fall prey to cognitive and organizational biases that get in the way of good decision making. In this series, we highlight some of them and offer a few effective ways...

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Summary: In decades past, executives were usually taught to practice command-and-control leadership. Today they’re often advised to be more nimble, more adaptive, and less controlling. The truth is that most executives need to be able to move back and forth between those two leadership styles. This article looks at seven tensions that executives need to...

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Research shows that different eras call for different approaches. Summary: Two decades ago, extensive research led Nohria, the former dean of Harvard Business School, to conclude that the hallmark of great leadership is the ability to adapt to the times. Today, he says, we’re in a period of significant change, thanks to global events, governmental...

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These days, almost all of us feel pressed for time. Leadership expert Dorie Clark shares three hidden reasons people fall into an endless loop of feeling constantly busy, and invites you to question what really motivates how you spend your time. Click here to watch Ted Talk…

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Leadership Skills and Golf Did you know there are leadership skills you can learn from golf? It’s true – spending more time on the course can help your career! Want a valid excuse to spend more time on the golf course and less in front of the TV or at the office? The leadership skills...

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Every leader should design and communicate how they want to make decisions. Making it clear what you care about, what you need to know about, and what you’re tasking others to move on will help minimize confusion about who should be making which decisions. It also helps clarify when you as the leader can be...

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Summary.   Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution. At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions. For effective questioning, start by holding your hypotheses loosely. Be willing to fundamentally reconsider your initial...

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This article is a last of a series about a turn-around engagement I had in 2021.  Come along for a real life business story of The Peter Principle and/or The Dunning-Kruger Effect in action. The story goes like this… From the outside, even on the surface, the company looked successful.  But by the time I...

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Summary.   Midsize companies have weaknesses when it comes to addressing the talent issues they face — but they also have critical strengths. The authors present three steps leaders can take to leverage those strengths and prevail in the toughest talent market in memory. First, they should identify and prioritize exactly which talent they’re lacking — the...

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Back in the middle of 2017, as Tesla was ramping up the production of the Model-3 and the company was worth only $63.5 billion (as opposed to $1 trillion today), Elon Musk famously stated that he was entering “Production Hell“.  Evidently, he made it through just fine. But people reading this might think; “Isn’t Musk...

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Summary; The next time you are filling a leadership role, ask yourself three questions. First, does the candidate have the skills to be a high-performing contributor or the skills to be an effective leader? The performance level of individual contributors is measured largely through their ability, likability, and drive. Leadership, by contrast, demands a broader...

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When an employee fails—or even just performs poorly—managers typically do not blame themselves. The employee doesn’t understand the work, a manager might contend. Or the employee isn’t driven to succeed, can’t set priorities, or won’t take direction. Whatever the reason, the problem is assumed to be the employee’s fault—and the employee’s responsibility. But is it?...

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I had a project where I was hired to try to help turn a company around.  The challenges faced existed across the entirety of the company.  In fact, there was no function of the company that was operating at an acceptable level.  This company was very sick. The owner of the company and I made...

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“Building a plane while flying it” or some variation has been used to describe situations in education (2011), education (2016). education (2017), health care, medicine, ride-hailing startups, business strategy, even fluffier business stories, and…this. And long before earning broad criticism for its use in tech, the phrase was vividly illustrated in an ad for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) that has since been appropriated for all...

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We have all been there at least once in our lives.  It might be that we are faced with a single, big, fat, hairy challenge and we don’t know where to start.  Or it might be that we are faced with several challenges at once; each one not particularly overwhelming, but together are; with each...

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Today I invite back to “State of Readiness”, Brent Gleeson, a Navy SEAL combat veteran and serial entrepreneur. In addition to being a best-selling author of “Taking Point” and his new release, “Embrace the Suck“, Brent has leveraged the principles of leadership, discipline, accountability and resiliency learned in training and applied down range for building...

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Employers don’t hire people – or assign them a project or task – in the hopes they will fail.  And employees don’t take on a job, project, or task in the hopes they will fail.  On the contraire, the expectations all around are that the outcome will be successful. Certainly, sometimes the outcomes are not...

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Summary. Creating a unifying vision for an organization is a fundamental skill for leaders. A simple, bold, inspirational vision can feel almost magical: it brings people throughout the company together around a common goal and provides a focal point for developing strategies to achieve a better future. Unfortunately, however, building a vision has become more...

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How to create more value by connecting experts from inside and outside the organization Though most executives recognize the importance of breaking down silos to help people collaborate across boundaries, they struggle to make it happen. That’s understandable: It is devilishly difficult. Think about your own relationships at work—the people you report to and those who report...

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Her books are “Fearless Leadership” and “Span of Control” In this episode of “State of Readiness”, Joseph Paris invites Carey Lohrenz as his guest. Carey was the first female F-14 fighter pilots in the United States Navy; call-sign Vixen. Given her experiences, she knows well that inconsistent execution in fast-moving, dynamic environments can generate catastrophic...

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Defining the example first, then leading by example As we go through life, we end up collecting a bunch of “truths” or mantras that subconsciously form the way we see the world.  This starts in the home we grow up in, where we are subjected to certain rules and norms.  “Money doesn’t grow on trees”,...

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My guest today is Dave Light, owner of Certainty Resources Limited and author of the book, “The Certainty Principle”. We start this episode by exploring David’s meandering journey and how each opportunity, with some tenacity and focus, led him to the next. But his personal transformational moment, the one that helped him to decide to...

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Summary.  It is often said that a strong vision makes a good leader. But in a crisis, people don’t need a vision to inspire them–they’re already raring to act. Instead, they need what psychologists call “holding”–leaders who acknowledge their emotions and give them a sense of context and reality. Holding allows people to channel their desire...

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Leaders today need to revisit an overlooked skill: asking questions. In my 40 years as an executive and advisor in Silicon Valley, I’ve often seen leaders assume that people look to them for answers — bold assertions that build people’s confidence in their competence. But in reality, that kind of approach erodes trust, especially at...

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Profit, money, shareholders: these are the priorities of most companies today. But at what cost? In an appeal to corporate leaders worldwide, Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya calls for an end to the business playbook of the past — and shares his vision for a new, “anti-CEO playbook” that prioritizes people over profits. “This is the...

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What are we missing in the OpEx movement?  We have talked so much about the Six Sigma and lean thinking, and how the two, used together (not just one or the other) lead us to operational excellence.  Is respect for people the missing link? When I went to Kentucky, two decades ago, to study Lean...

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