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7/1/2008 Handling Conflict in Teams: Divide Or Conquer by Diana Mclain SmithI already consider Divide or Conquer to be a must-read for CEOs, middle managers and newbies to the business world. There is so much to learn about conflict, confrontations and building strong relationships, and this book is a great place to start. Diana's ideas on conflict are not only interesting and based in the real world, they will help anyone improve their important business relationships and get more out of them. With Bill Gates recent departure from Microsoft, I found Smith's thoughts on the Gates/Balmer relationship at Microsoft timely and interesting. Comparing their positive relationship to that of the broken, and highly publicized relationship betwen Scully and Jobs from Apple helped show just how critical good relationships are to a company's success. It also highlighted the fact that poor or broken relationships can lead to serious damage to both the organization (external) and it's people (internal). I always enjoy a little humor with my reads and Smith's book makes for an interesting, smart and easy read with a high return. You'll learn how to develop strong, flexible business relationships and understand how they affect both your own and the organization's success. You'll get ideas on how to reshape your thinking and avoid "framing" people through the practical advice, and you'll learn to how to s-l-o-w down your thinking and assumptions so you can have real, productive conversations. If you're interested in learning more about how conflict, relationships and teams affect your perfonal/professional success, definitely check out Divide or Conquer- How Great Teams Turn Conflict Into Strength. Here are some links with more about author Diana Smith and her new book Divide or Conquer- How Great Teams Turn Conflict Into Strength:
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership Podcast: Earning Trust,the four main componentsDavid Maister has a fabulous podcast titled Earning Trust. It runs a tight 16 minutes and is an
I believe these four dimensions to be a valuable way to assess my own behavior and can see how they can help anyone develop trust. Leaders cannot lead effectively without trust so learning how to build trust is critical to your success. Listen to Earning Trust here: http://davidmaister.com/podcasts.archives/5/55/ to get started! posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 6/22/2008 Good Podcast: Conflict in Teams w/ Diana Mclain SmithI just started Diana Mclain Smith's new book Divide or Conquer- How Great Teams Turn Conflict Into Strength and am loving it. I was happy to see that Wayne over at the Cranky Middle Manager did a podcast with Diana and had to listen: The Cranky Middle Manager Show #148 Conflict in Teams- Diana Mclain Smith.
I highly recommend this book and have just started it. If you're interested in learning more about Diana or her new book detailing the in's and out's of team conflict, check out these resources, including three brief podcasts of her own:
And of course don't forget to check out the Cranky Middle Manager for more excellent podcasts. Others I've enjoyed recently include The Cranky Middle Manager #147 Ken Blanchard Is Here and The Cranky Middle Manager #144 Big Ideas to Big Results- Michael Kanazawa. posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 6/19/2008 300+ Inspiring Leadership, Management and Personal Development BlogsEarlier this month David Zinger posted a list of 300 bloggers who inspire him - and Raven's Brain was fortunate enough to make the list! One of the things I enjoy about blogging is sharing the many interesting and useful resources I stumble upon in my web travels - and so I share David's list of 300 excellent blogs with a positive focus. Some I've visited and others are new to me. I can't wait to dig through and find out what I've been missing! Zinger's list: 300 bloggers who inspire me: And here are a few more leadership, management, business and development blogs that inspire me:
Enjoy! posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 6/17/2008 Marshall Goldsmith Video on Managing UpThe Harvard Business School Publishing site has a 9 minute video with Marshall Goldsmith, author of the must-read book What Got You Here Won't Get You There. I found the discussion interesting but had trouble viewing the entire embedded video over at 800-CEO-READ Blog. You might try the HBSP site directly if you have trouble with buffering:
As I said, interesting and if you haven't read Goldsmith's book, you might want to pick it up or add to your reading list!
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 6/14/2008 Jerry Manas is Managing the Gray AreasAs mentioned in an earlier post, I have a forthcoming book review on the e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t new management and leadership book Managing the Gray Areas, from author Jerry Manas. It's not your typical leadership book, it's written by a noted PM and leadership guru and is quite interesting. I'm expecting some great insights from guest voice Lisa Forsyth's pending review and am sure many will want to read Gray Areas - it's certainly on my list of must-read leadership books for this year. If you're already intrigued and want to learn more now - check out Jerry's recent article at PMWorld: How to address the “Gray Areas” ! Tough Questions for Leaders (PDF). Here's an excerpt:
PMWorld (scroll to bottom) also included some background on Jerry and his book, and I'm always interested in learning more about the folks whose books I read and blogs I follow:
I received an email this week announcing that the archived Webinar Managing the Gray Areas–Leading with Humanity is now available for viewing. You can access this free and informative Webinar from Jerry Manas here:http://www.rmcproject.com/webinar/webinar-grayareas.aspx. If you're PMP certified you'll be happy to hear this webinar is registered with PMI for one PDU - another easy way to keep your accredication current. And if you're looking to purchase Managing The Gray Areas, check out this great deal:
Related reading:
NOTE: Raven's Brain has MOVED! Raven's Brain new web site Raven's Brain V2.0 FEED Subscribe to Raven's Brain V2.0 via email posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 6/12/2008 Women Leaders: Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi On LeadershipLeading Blog has an article discussing some of Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi's thoughts on leadership development and also notes five skills essential to solid leaders:
Read more here: http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2008/06/pepsico_ceo_indra_nooyi_on_dev.html Some interesting insights from one of today's noted women leaders. For a brief, concise list - these five items are applicable to effective leaders. As always, you can go on and on over what should be added or taken away, but lets take this list for what it highlights - brief, practical leadership points. I like the fourth one - most people overlook the importance of continuing to develop in your particular field, while also growing on a professional level (think soft skills, self awareness, personal growth, emotional intelligence, etc.). I also like the mindset of "each one of PepsiCo’s 18,000 employees is a leader" - it encourages a "we" mentality and working toward a single purpose. I like Nooyi's leadership insights but I still prefer Coca-Cola ;) posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 5/11/2008 300 Free Employee Engagement KeysMy recent post A to Z quotes for Employee Engagement was a piece of a larger effort at the Employee Engagement Network, and has been published as an e-book (pdf) that includes over 300 Free Employee Engagement Keys from 12 different authors. Here's the plug from David Zinger:
It was fun to be a part of this initiative that began as a blog post from Zinger and resulted in a 39 page e-book, 12 different takes on an employee engagement alphabet. In Zinger's announcement post he talks about the effort and offers some suggestions on how to use the keys to your advantage:
You can find out more about each of the authors by checking out their profile at the Employee Engagement Network (mine is here), and you'll also find tons of other great EE related forums, groups and more. Check it out: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/ NOTE: Raven's Brain has MOVED! Raven's Brain new web site Raven's Brain V2.0 FEED Subscribe to Raven's Brain V2.0 via email posted by Raven at Raven's Brain under Leadership 5/2/2008 A to Z quotes for Employee Engagement
As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm a member of The Employee Engagement Network. I recently
Read more here about the EEN here: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/ Check out the recently released "one sentence of advice on employee engagement" PDF: EENF6OneSentenceofEmployeeEngagementAdvice.pdf Below is my list of Employee Engagement from A-Z - I chose to use famous quotes (some more famous than others) for added spice:
Hope you enjoyed my list. Stay tuned for more on the A-Z effort. I'll point to the e-book with everyone's alphabet once it's published later this month (May 9th-ish). For more on the Employee Engagement Network: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/ Don't think the EEN is for you? check out this intro from Zinger:
Sound good? It should! the EEN is a friendly place to interact with others, learn new things, develop in a variety of areas, and contiue growing in new directions. Check it out, yo! Current Forum's at the Employee Engagement Network:
posted by Raven at Raven's Brain under Leadership 4/23/2008 Employee Engagement: Sentenced To EngagementA post from Lisa's bad brain, guest voice inside Raven’s Brain. Over at the Employee Engagement Network network host David Zinger started a forum to capture employee engagement in one sentence. All responses, including mine, were compiled and published in .PDF by Zinger:
My sentence became the first letter in my Alphabet Soup: Employee Engagement from A-Z post, but I'd have to say my favorite "employee engagement in one sentence" comes from Zinger himself. I'm including his intro as it provides an overview for his sentence:
Stay tuned for details on the the A-Z PDF that will be published over at EEN soon! For reference, here's an earlier post from this site discussing the EEN and my Alphabet Soup post over at the network: http://ravenyoung.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!17376F4C11A91E0E!4227.entry. Until next time, Lisa posted by Lisa Forsyth at Raven's Brain under Leadership 4/8/2008 Alphabet Soup: Employee Engagement from A-ZLisa and I are members of The Employee Engagement Network and are enjoying the interaction with different folks on all things EE related. The Employee Engagement Network was started by David Zinger earlier this year and membership continues to grow each day. If you are interested in learning more about
Now on to the actual point of this post..
Lisa did a great post on employee engagement over at the network blog: Alphabet Soup: Employee Engagement from A-Z, that is actually part of a larger effort by Zinger to capture an A-Z list of engagement words/phrases from other members of the EE network. His list is here: Employee Engagement: 26 Keys From A to Z. Here's a brief excerpt from Lisa's post:
Read the rest here: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1986438%3ABlogPost%3A6386
Read more about Lisa: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/profile/LisaForsyth Other posts from Lisa: Peer Code Reviews Yield More Than a Goodnight's Sleep & Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager
As always - Enjoy!
posted by Raven at Raven's Brain under Leadership 4/3/2008 20 Benefits of Peer to Peer CoachingRosa Say has a great post from last month where she details 20 Benefits of Peer to Peer
That last sentence makes a great case for peer to peer coaching. Sure you need the right culture, where feedback is accepted and expected - respectfully, but the benefits are worth it. Here are a few nuggets from Rosa's list of 20 benefits of P2PC:
It's easy to look at coaching as a touchy-feely, foo-foo activity that most teams/organizations don't have time for, but you will find that most high performing teams have open, respectful communications that often contain some level of P2PC. posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Employee Engagement 3/2/2008 Leadership Insights: Miles’ Law and Six Other Maxims of ManagementMichael McKinney over at Leading Blog wrote a post on Miles’ Law and Six Other Maxims of Management. I'm a Gen-Xer and hadn't heard of Rufus E. Miles, Jr., his "law" or the accompanying six maxims and found McKinney's post both informative and interesting. The post states these thoughts from Miles were published in 1978 but here we are 30 years later and they're still relevant. Here's an excerpt to get you started:
Read the complete post here: http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2008/02/miles_law_and_six_other_maxims.html
You'll need to go to the post to read the rest. To learn more abot Miles Law check out this related link: The Origin and Meaning of Miles' Law (click enlarge page size to view article).
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 2/27/2008 Podcast Interview with 'Remarkable Leadership' Author Kevin EikenberryI don't think I ever got to posting a review of Remarkable Leadership, one of the better leadership books published in 2007. Many good reviews and interviews already exist (here, here, here and here, to get started) and I recently came across an episode of The Cranky Middle Manager from January where author Kevin Eikenberry stopped by for a 30 minute interview via podcast: The Cranky Middle Manager Show 129- Remarkable Leadership with Kevin Eikenberry. More good stuff from CMM Host Wayne Turmel and great insights from Eikenberry make this podcast worthwhile.
Read more about the podcast and listen (or download .mp3 for later) here: http://cmm.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/01/25/the-cranky-middle-manager-show-129-remarkable-leadership-with-kevin-eikenberry/
Related links:
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership Like this post? You can: subscribe to Raven's Brain via RSS | Subscribe by Email | Add to Technorati Favorites 1/6/2008 Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good ManagerA post from Lisa's bad brain, guest voice inside Raven’s Brain. Nick McCormick's book, Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Managerr, delivers exactly what it promises-"a collection of simple, short, and sweet strategies to help managers at any level improve." I picked up Lead Well and Prosper because of its immediate appeal to me--it was short at just over 90 pages with the appendix, gave brief employee-manager scenarios that got right to the point, and had a list of do's, don'ts, and actions for all 15 strategies. The strategy that resonated most with me was "Embrace the Uncomfortable." Nick McCormick notes that "we h Do: Don't: Action: This particular strategy resonates with me because I lean far to the introverted side of the spectrum. I have been managing a team for two years now that has more than doubled in size. Managing has always been somewhat outside my comfort zone because of my tendency to live in my own head (even my own team meetings make me nervous), so I appreciate all the quick advice I can get to tackle the challenges holding me back. Obviously, with growing responsibility comes the growing need to present comfortably in front of different groups of people, and I tend to procrastinate delivering a presentation no matter how complete it is, because I don't think it is at the level of perfection I need it to be in order to be comfortable presenting. This is crazy--I always have more data and detail than expected. But I don't want to present, so it isn't quite done. The strategy I adopted for myself is to schedule the meeting as soon as the first draft is complete--I won't want to reschedule because it is hard enough to coordinate in the first place! There are a number of different opinions on the specific number and definition of traits a good manager must possess--you will not find experts on management referenced to defend the set of characteristics all great managers must possess in McCormick's book, nor will you find detailed behavioral analysis in the employee-manager scenarios. What you will find is practical advice for overcoming some of those things you might feel are holding you back, and that to me, is worth it. Thank you Nick, for a book I will keep on-hand when I need quick advice for an immediate situation. Posted by Lisa Forsyth at Raven's Brain under Leadership 1/5/2008 Book review: Lead Well and Prosper, by Nick McCormick
He offers us hope with his short and practical list of "15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager:"
The book is a quick read with actionable tips at the end of each strategy and also included is the complete list of tips in the appendix. You do not have to believe that the 15 strategies Nick lists are THE 15 strategies that lead to greatness in order to learn something, and if you already think you are great, try Nick's test to challenge your own thinking. For more on Nick McCormick and his book Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager:
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 12/20/2007 12 Simple Tips For Building Group, Team, Organizational TrustPascal Van Cauwenberghe has an interesting post on the subject of trust: David Anderson on Trust. It covers a talk given by David Anderson “Building a high trust culture in your software engineering organisation” and summarizes some great thoughts on the tough subject of trust. A few items caught my eye: First, what is trust?
Second, how can you build "high trust" within your group, team, org? Here are 12 simple tips from the post/discussion:
Read more of the post here: http://blog.nayima.be/2007/12/15/david-anderson-on-trust/ It's worth reading the complete post to get all context and details. Good stuff and I appreciate that Pascal Van Cauwenberghe took the time to share his thoughts and insights gleaned from the session. posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 12/17/2007 Management vs. Leadership - are they the same?Three Star Leadership has an interesting post discussing whether leadership and management are the same thing: Does it matter whether we call something management or leadership? Good insights and a second, equally interesting post from Mike Morrison is referenced:
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 11/12/2007 Book Review: Jack Stahl's "Lessons On Leadership"If the name Jack Stahl is not familiar to you, he’s a former, very successful CEO at both Revlon and Coca-Cola. During his time at both companies boosts in profits and overall performance was considered to be quite positive. Jack Stahl is known in the business world as a true, successful leader so he obviously knows what leadership skills to build and areas to develop in. His new book Lessons on Leadership: The 7 Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at all Levels shares Stahl’s experience and the interesting methodology for leadership he's developed over the years. Now, I believe there is a reason to read books by solid, proven leaders. They’ve already shown they have got what it takes to make it in business. Who else would you want to trust with shaping your leadership development? I want to learn from “doers” – outstanding individuals who’ve been challenged to lead in the moment, actively developed teams and shaped organizations, who persevered during challenging times in an increasingly complicated and political business world. There is no substitute for being in the trenches, working through issues, responding to the overwhelming number of issues, risks and challenges, and then understanding how complex the business is – all the pieces of the business pie. A solid leader should understand the importance of setting and achieving solid goals while also learning what is and isn’t working, and that’s what makes this new book by Jack Stahl a gem. Stahl’s book discusses his proven leadership methodology and outlines seven leadership themes he
As far as books on leadership go, I found Lessons On Leadership to be an interesting, insightful read. Stahl’s book could be a virtual handbook on how-to lead a company, and his experience and advice come though clearly. It’s a pretty easy read and I found myself appreciating the anecdotes and advice based on Stahl’s own experience, since they made the leadership insights feel more real. I also loved that the book wasn’t heavy, tedious, boring or full of complicated theories and rambling rhetoric. If you’re looking for your next book on leadership definitely check out Jack Stahl’s Lessons On Leadership. You’ll find great information on what to do, good questions to ask, and an excellent seven step methodology written by a proven leader in the real world. I believe anyone will benefit from reading Lessons On Leadership as there is a ton of useful info packed into this comprehensive book on leadership. Additional resources:
posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Leadership 11/7/2007 Leadership Insights: Trust in the workplace part deuxLast month Cheri Baker had a great post on integrity at work: Building Trust in the Workplace and I did a brief post on it: Leadership Insights: Are you really "trusted" at work?. This month Cheri's followed up with a second excellent post: Trust in the Workplace part II: Manager vs. Manager. Here's a brief clip:
Another great post on the subject of trust. It's one that I'm interested, as is Bas De Baar who has a few posts on trust and has been emailing some ideas on, as he calls it, the "fuzzy concept" of trust. If all works out we might actually publish an article so stay tuned (but please don't hold your breath!).
If you have other articles on building or developing trust I'd love to hear from you: raven_young AT hotmail DOT com
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