I’m taking my title from an article written by Gary Hamel in the December, 2011 edition of The Harvard Business Review. In the article, Hamel reports on the practices of Morning Star, a tomato processing company founded in 1970 with 400 employees and over $700 million in annual revenue. You’ve likely used the company’s products since they handle around 30% of the tomatoes processed in the US each year. In an industry that has grown by about 1% in the past 20 years, Morning  Star’s revenues have consistently been in double digits. [Read more...]

A few years back I did some consulting work with a hospital that wanted to improve the quality of management across the entire organization (admin, Drs., nurses, etc.).  They began by administering a survey to all employees, asking them to rate their managers on a number of management and leadership qualities. [Read more...]

In my last post, I introduced the concepts of the accountability letter and interview.  Their purpose is to create clarity and alignment between an individual and his or her manager. I have found the process to be extremely powerful in companies in which I’ve recommended and implemented it, especially when leaders view them not as tools to control people but rather practices to create mutual understanding and open up constructive conversation.

Today I want to put a twist on the practice.  Enlightened leaders are coming to realize that ultimate accountability is not to leaders but customers. The purpose of your work, whatever it might be, is to bring value to your customers, be they internal or external. The whole concept of “management” was put into place to control the means and way in which people accomplish their work. Although a topic for another day, traditional management practices bring lots of unintended consequences which may actually impede organizational objectives and efficiency. (I’ll talk more about that in an upcoming post.) [Read more...]

I’ve been exploring, in recent blogs, practices to build good leadership into the infrastructure of your organization. It’s one thing to understand, theoretically, good leadership. It’s another to put that understanding into practice on a daily basis.

Today I want to introduce the practice of an “Accountability Letter.” The purpose of this letter is to ensure clarity and agreement between an individual and his/her manager about performance expectations on the job. Here are the basic ingredients of such a letter: [Read more...]

There are probably hundreds of definitions of leadership. However, at its essence, leadership is influencing others to accomplish results. Leadership is not so much about what you do and accomplish on your own. It is about what you are able to help others accomplish. It is about how you are able to influence other people to raise their level of performance to new and better heights and contribute more than they previously thought possible.

[Read more...]