“Amazing Things Are Happening Here” Featured on Leadership Development Carnival

Dan McCarthy, leadership blogger and head of leadership and management development at Paychex, selected one of my blog posts to be included in his current edition of Leadership Development Carnival. While you’re there, check out some of the great posts by insightful bloggers such as Steve Roesler, Wally Bock an Miki Saxon.

Will You Surf The Perfect Storm Ahead…or Be Drowned By It?

Following is a sneak peak of an article I wrote for the American Management Association’s Journal.  It’s about the necessity for organizations to increase employee engagement (including leadership development, team building and  talent management) as the forces of globalization and demographics collide. 

A perfect storm is brewing that will threaten many a firm’s survival in the decades ahead. Market forces, like storm fronts, are colliding to produce volatile conditions.  Companies that anticipate and prepare for these threats can convert them into major opportunities to leap ahead of their competitors.  There’s plenty of evidence that savvy companies are already moving to gain a competitive edge.   Rather than being crushed by the massive waves, these companies are effectively surfing them and will leave competitors in their wake.  

Buzz: Marshall Goldsmith Endorsement, Second Printing, Now in Vietnamese, Speaking Engagements

Fired Up or Burned Out continues selling well even though we don’t have a radio, tv or periodical “platform,” as publishing industry people call it. The book has spread mostly by word of mouth. Good things keep happening.  Here are a few.  Next week the second English language printing arrives.  The book was just published in Vietnamese.   Best-selling author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith recently wrote an endorsement of it.  

I’m also receiving a growing number of invitations to speak, write and do interviews. In the coming months I will speak at several companies as well as at the
American Management Association, the Wharton Alumni Club, the University of Pennsylvania Club,  the Marketing Executives Networking Group, the Advanced Learning Institute,  AthenaOnline and the Society for Human Resource Management.  Articles I authored or about our work were recently published in Chief Learning Officer magazine, The Economic Times, Moving Ahead, and Live Mint.  Upcoming articles about our work will be published in M World: The Journal of the American Management Association and Rotman.

What does it all mean?  In addition to the growing word of mouth buzz about Fired Up or Burned Out, the interest in employee engagement is rapidly increasing as companies find it difficult to recruit and retain people in certain areas such as technology, healthcare, retail and oil and gas.  Companies have also told me they find it difficult to recruit and retain Generation Y workers. Interest in increasing employee engagement is just beginning. Increasing labor shortages and the competitive effects of globalization make this inevitable.   

Robert Morris: Business Book Reviewer Extraordinaire

robert-morris.jpg Last year I had the good fortune to meet Robert Morris. He is known for being among the very best reviewers of business books so I was naturally delighted when I read his favorable review of Fired Up or Burned Out.  Later on I met Robert while visiting Dallas.  He interviewed me for Knowledge Leadership at Thomas Group (the text of the interview follows this post).

Many readers have come to trust Robert’s book reviews for their clarity and insight.  If you’re interested in books on business and leadership, you would benefit from reading Robert’s reviews. You can find them in various places online. I prefer to read them on
Robert’s profile page at Amazon.com.  

I personally enjoy reading and writing book reviews that I believe will benefit leaders, especially those in business.  Unfortunately, my time does not allow me to write reviews for many books.   As a means to expand my capacity to recommend books to leaders, I decided to post some of Robert Morris’ book reviews on my blog. Not all of his reviews but merely reviews that he has written of books I’ve read and feel his review is consistent with my own thinking. 

Many people know the name Robert Morris, but not the man.  Here’s more about him.  

Amazing Things Are Happening Here!

ny-presbyterian-logo.gif Last year Leader to Leader published a article Jason Pankau and I wrote entitled “Strengthening Human Value in Organizational Cultures.”  Previously, the article was only available to Leader to Leader’s subscribers or those who paid for a download from the internet.  Leader to Leader has given us permission to post the paper on our blog so here it is.  The article begins with a remarkable story about New York-Presbyterian Hospital System and its CEO Dr. Herbert Pardes.  New York-Presbyterian presently uses the tag line “amazing things are happening here” in its advertising and other written communications.  Read the article and I think you’ll agree.  

U2’s Unity Featured in the American Management Association’s “Moving Ahead” Publication

u2-black-and-white.jpgAn article I wrote on the band U2 was just published by the American Management Association as the lead article in its popular Moving Ahead: Management Insights for Business Success publication. The article is entitled “Great Teams: The Extraordinary Unity of U2.” Thanks goes to Shari Lifland, the editor of Moving Ahead, who made some very clever changes from the original article that was published last month in The Economic Times in India.  

Webcast: SabreTown Helps Sabre Holdings and Its Employees Thrive!

Join me in a webcast with my guest Al Comeaux, SVP of Corporate Communications for Sabre Holdings.   Al will present an overview of SabreTown, the remarkable social networking platform Sabre built in-house.  I saw Al’s presentation at a conference and was struck by the profound and positive impact SabreTown has had on Sabre Holdings.  In Al’s presentation you will learn: 

  • how the SabreTown community is increasing connections among employees over geographic distances, while saving the company money and creating efficiency,
  • how SabreTown has become a powerful knowledge management tool, 
  • what Sabre did that has resulted in an extraordinary rate of adoption by Sabre employees,
  • how Sabre designed SabreTown so that it requires little oversight, and
  • how SabreTown helps employees get up to speed faster. 

If you work in information technology, corporate communications, employee engagement, training and development, or corporate learning functions, this is a presentation you don’t want to miss! I hope you’ll join me in this lively and enlightening webcast that shows how web 2.0 and corporate culture are combining to take organizations to the next step in their evolution.  Click on “SabreTown Helps Sabre Holdings and Its Employees Thrive!” to sign up for the webcast. 

U2: The “Band” as Family

Earlier this year I posted about the unity among the members of the band U2 and how it contributed to the band’s success.  Comments from several individuals made me dig much deeper into the band’s story (thank you Astid, David Zinger, Lee Smith and Rachel for enlightening me). What I discovered was an extraordinary journey the band made to evolve into the force it is today. 

The article I wrote about it was published today in The Economic Times (in India) and it will be published later this year in two of the American Management Association’s publications (Moving Ahead and the AMA’s Catalog).  Here’s the link to
The Economic Times’ article

Let me know what you think.