Strategic Leadership Execution

Letter From the Editor

2009 is gone. For many, it was a real bummer. Many lost their jobs, their homes, and their sense of financial or job security. I heard yesterday someone say that their retirement funding account, called a 401k, looked more like a “101k.”

Perspective

The L2L Group on LinkedIn has over 13,000+ members and I am priviledged to be able to speak with many of them who are practitioners in the field of leadership development, organizational health, and personal & professional growth. I heard a lot in 2009 about what is going on in organizational development at large, medium, and small organizations around the globe.

In addition to personal suffering from employees all up and down the line, the organizations in which these people work also took their hits. Employment roles diminished. Downsizing “increased.” And the systems that keep organizational healthy also lost much of their funding. The “Organizational Health Practitioners” in your HR and training departments had their budgets slashed, their travel cut, and their ability to keep the organization vibrant and growing diminished. With this, many of the unsightly behaviors coming from unskilled leaders in stressful work conditions flourished.

Welcome to Bummerville!

As author Greg Githens of the upcoming book Leading Strategic Initiatives says, “Clearly, there is a need for leadership/people skills that supplement the classic plan-your-work and work-your-plan dogma that many methodologists espouse.” There needs to be better ways to cope with the issues that organizations and the people within them deal suffer with.

So, it’s now almost Q2 2010 and hope is in the air…

What’s going On?

I am eagerly looking for solutions to help people who want to learn, grow, and help develop other people. In the “leadership collaboratory” style,  I recently submitted a series of questions to a large group of practitioners in the leadership, teamwork, and organizational health arenas to see what is brewing on the back burners that could help make positive bottom line changes for organizations.

As a professional in this world, my deepest passions lie in “equipping equippers” who can help serve others. I like building platforms. I think of myself as some kind of concert promoter who wants to build venues, fill stadiums, and sell tickets so that the best-of-the-best can just get on stage and sing. We are building that venue and are looking for a collaborative approach to building it correctly.

My goal for 2010 is to help release the “recipes for success” that can help organizations resuscitate from their economic sick bed and get on a course for recovery. For this, I need your insights! We have some cool things planned for you!

“So, what is keeping you up at night?”

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Open Forum Questions – Please Respond!

To move to a better place in 2010, individuals, teams, and their leadership will need to raise the bar on new plans and execution strategies to impact the bottom line.

I would like to hear your prescription for success. Do you have answers for these “keep you up at night” questions:

~What is wrong with recruiting and hiring that needs to change?
~How can on-boarding be improved for new employees, management, and executives?

~What is wrong with team development that needs correcting?
~What is the best way to orchestrate and align talents with organizational objectives?

~What can be done to improve execution of change-management initiatives?
~What improvements in motivation and compensation packages are begging for improvement?

~What is missing in management and executive development that could be improved?
~What needs correcting in retention and succession planning efforts?

~How can creativity and innovation be better sown, grown, and cultivated?
~How best can soft and hard business skills be blended for better results?

~What else is missing from the mix that could truly raise the bar and impact the bottom line?

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Thank you for your creative insights! ~Tom

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Tom Schulte is Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership &
CEO of Recalibrate Professional Development in Atlanta, GA USA.
He can be reached at [email protected]