December 23rd, 2007
by John Spence |
I was recently out in California having a conversation with one of my clients, the COO of a Fortune 500 firm that has engaged me to coach several of his senior leaders. Currently I am working with a handful of divisional CEOs, each running a 200 – 600 million dollar enterprise. During our talk the COO said something that really struck home for me and gave me a super idea of what he wanted me to do for him. “John, these are absolutely fantastic guys, but they can be tough to manage… please help make them easier to manage.”
Wow, that is a perfect statement because it gets right to the heart of why I am typically called in to coach someone. The executives I coach are bright, talented, bold, creative, entrepreneurial and driven… all truly valuable traits. But taken to the extreme, these same traits can make these sorts of folks very hard to manage and direct. What’s more, if they cannot learn how to control their behavior and fit in more comfortably in a senior role, the very things that made them successful up to this point in their career, can actually lead to their demise.
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November 17th, 2007
by Dr. Brian Higley |
As a business leader, psychologist, and educator, I am often amazed by what seems to me to be an epidemic of anxiety, dissatisfaction, disengagement, and depression in this culture. From the boardrooms to the classrooms to the therapist’s chair, people seem to be continuously reporting feeling more overwhelmed (“work never seems to end”), less energetic (“I can’t seem to get out of bed without my morning coffee – sometimes two cups!”), and not very hopeful about the future (“oh, well, I guess that’s life – you learn to accept it”). From time to time, I have felt these feelings myself as I attempt to maintain a satisfying business and personal life – and I’m considered in some circles to be an “expert” on how to run a more efficient business and live a happier life! What is going on here? After countless conversations with my colleagues, clients, and other experts in the field, I believe we may have come to a very important answer; one that can positively impact your business and – most importantly, I think – your life in very meaningful ways. I want to begin this article with a discussion about what I call “The Purposeful Doing Movement.”
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November 17th, 2007
by John Spence |
For the past three years I have been invited to be a guest lecturer on “strategic thinking” at a special event at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Typically I have about 120 senior executives in my class and during the session I will pose this question: “What percentage of the time do companies that have a clear vision and a specific plan to achieve that vision, effectively execute to that plan?” The answer I most often get is 10-15% of the time. Wow, that is scary
This is one of the biggest issues I face in all of my consulting and training assignments. It is what we refer to in our firm as the “Knowing-Doing Gap.” Companies know what they are supposed to do, they have a solid plan to dominate their market – but creating a performance-oriented culture of disciplined execution that can effectively implement the plan seems to be a challenge that few can conquer. If that were not frustrating enough, when you step back and look at the financial implications they can be staggering. Inability to execute to plan is likely responsible for the overwhelming percentage of lost revenues in most large organizations.
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October 21st, 2007
by John Spence |
I recently had a student email me with some questions about how to be an outstanding marketer. Here was my response:
Here are some things off the top of my head:
- Do you truly understand exactly who your target customer is in great detail? You have to have a very clear and detailed picture of specifically who you are trying to entice. Age, race, attitude, income, hobbies, TV and reading preferences, where do they get their info, which media do they trust, how do they make their buying decisions… everything you can possibly understand.
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September 9th, 2007
by John Spence |
Here is a copy of a recent note I sent to a CEO I am coaching. He is a fantastic guy, really, really smart and does a superior job with his company. He knows all of the things in this memo well (as you likely do too!) it is simply that he needed to be reminded of it – and more importantly, pushed hard to do a better job of executing these key ideas in a consistent way throughout his organization.
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