Managing Monsters in Meetings - Part 5, Dominant Participants

While dominant participants contribute significantly to the success of a meeting, they can also overwhelm, intimidate, and exclude others. Thus, you want to control their energy without losing their support.Approach 1: Ask others to contributeAsking quiet participants to contribute indirectly moderates the more dominant participants. Say:"Before we continue, I want to hear from the rest of the . . .

Experiences of Management Coaching (Part 2)

In our experience, we have found that there are several reasons managers fail to get employees to see and acknowledge that they have a problem.They assume. Many managers bypass the step of getting agreement because they assume that an employee views the problem in the same way that they do. However, that is often not the case, especially when the performance problem is a pattern of behavior ra. . .

Managing Monsters in Meetings - Part 1, General Strategies for Unproductive B...

It happens easily. You're conducting a meeting and suddenly a small side meeting starts. Then someone introduces an unrelated issue. Someone else ridicules the new issue. Everyone laughs, except the person who mentioned the idea. Then someone insults the person who told the joke. Two people stand up and walk out. Others complain that the meeting is a waste of time.Now, what do you do?And how do. . .

Executive Performance -- Who's to Blame for Incompetent Managers?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal raised the question: Whos to blame for inept managers?The answer, of course, is the superiors who hire or promote them -- but not because they intentionally select or retain poor performers. Every leader knows that his or her own success depends on putting the right people in the right positions. Its easy to blame a managers poor performance on his. . .

A Leadership Screw Driver: The 90 Day Improvement Plan

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 648Summary: All leaders must eventually deal with poor performers. . .

Leading Bad Actors To Be Good Performers

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 978Summary: Leaders are occasionally afflicted by "bad actors", t. . .

The 20/60/20 Rule Of Leadership. Don't Go Solving The Wrong Problems

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 777Summary: Leaders often hamper their effectiveness by focusing . . .

25 Leadership Maxims

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 402Summary: Maxims have an illustrious history in the annuals of . . .

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have SMART Goals

The first step in planning an agenda is to identify the goals for the meeting. Properly done, goals have five S M A R T characteristics. They are:Specific. The goal must tell exactly what will be accomplished. For example: During the next hour we will develop a strategy to increase market share by 10%. This states exactly what the group will work on. Vague goals can cause you to lose control of. . .

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Earn a Profit

Most people treat meetings as a free resource that can be used to deal with any issue. As a result, huge amounts of time and money are wasted on trivia. A meeting is a business activity (not a social event) and should be designed to earn a profit. Heres how.Once youve prepared the goals for your meetings, use the following analysis to plan the agenda.1) Calculate the cost of the meeting by mu. . .

Why Would Anyone Do That in My Meeting?

Imagine that you open a meeting by saying, "We need to talk about the budget."And someone responds with, "I named my dog Budget because everyone tells me he's too big."After the laughter subsides, you wonder why anyone would make such a silly remark in your meeting.And this leads to a larger question: Why would anyone misbehave in a meeting? Taken to the extreme, misbehavior can ruin a meeting.. . .

The Leadership Talk: The Most Powerful Leadership Tool Of All (part 1)

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 879Summary: The author asserts that presentations and speeches ar. . .

What to Ask When Youre Invited to a Meeting

Here are five questions that you must ask before agreeing to attend a meeting. 1) Where is the agenda? A meeting without an agenda is like a journey without a map; it will always waste your time. Once you have the agenda, make sure that it consists of more than a list of words because this is almost useless. The agenda for an effective meeting will provide a complete description of how the meet. . .

Allan Kempert Discovered That Truly All You Gotta Do Is Ask.

A year or so ago, I met Allan Kempert. Allan was the Quality Assurance Supervisor for a metal stamping company in Ontario, and just completed Norman Bodeks book, The Idea Generator, Quick and Easy Kaizen. As Allan explains, he couldnt put the book down because it was such a simple approach and he knew that it was going to empower the employees at his place of employment. In fact, Allan had te. . .

Ten Top Tips on How to Get the Best from Changing Situations

Change is thrust upon us every hour of every day - in a radically and rapidly changing world, you just have to get over it! There are ways to do this - common sense ways which when we get into turmoil with ourselves, we lose track of. Here are a few reminders for you.It can be great to do something new 'for a change', when it's your choice. It's fun then. But when it comes up on you from out o. . .

"You Can't Direct the Wind but You Can Adjust the Sails"

Guidelines:You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy sent to article@itsm-made-easy.com would be appreciated.Format:60 words per lineWord count: 671 words (3926 chars)-----------------------------------------------------------------------"You Can't Direct the Wind but You Can Adjust the Sails" 2. . .

Leadership For Deep Results: Without Them Are You Wasting Your Leadership And...

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 811Summary: The author asserts there are two kinds of results lea. . .

Story Telling With a Purpose

For a brief time, I tried to sell life insurance. And, the operative word was 'tried' I can assure you. Although I thought I did a good job on the presentations and scripts provided by trainers, I did not make a single sale. On the other hand, the veteran who trained me didnt spend much time with presentations or scripts. He simply told stories about clients who spared their loved ones great p. . .

The Significance of the Mundane

This article begins with a tip of the hat to a scholarly publication called the Journal of Mundane Behavior. Unlike other publications, which herald important issues, this one trumpets everyday, but rarely noticed, behaviors. It sees what the rest of us overlook because that stuff is so, well, mundane (my dictionary defines 'mundane' as being ordinary or common).For example, I just read an arti. . .

Communicating Across Time Horizons

There was a time in my life when I sold life insurance. Well, to be frank, I tried to sell life insurance. With little success.And while I didn't sell any insurance, I did learn a thing or two, and I'd like to explore one of them with you today - time horizons.Some of the prospective policyholders I met could visualize themselves well into the future, say 20 or 30 years into the future. They we. . .