This month, we highlight the value of tactical communications in the planning process around goals, metrics and desired results. With the focus on knowledge-based decision-making, we also highlight a book that has helped us become more comfortable with communicating numbers as leaders. In, “Making Numbers Count”, Chip Heath and Karla Starr outline a process that helps leaders not only understand the numbers, but more importantly communicate the numbers in a way that resonates with the audience both logically and emotionally!Our favorite section of the book is titled “Use Emotional Numbers ~ Surprising and Meaningful ~ To Move People to Think and Act Differently”. It is a powerful set of ideas in short and easy-to- understand chapters that help the reader quickly understand the authors’ idea. The authors use plenty of examples that also aid in the reader grasping the main idea in a way that also makes it easy to apply...

This month, we tackled the issue of burnout from an organizational point of view. We know the modern workforce is drawn to organizations with a clearly defined purpose and have a strong foundation of values. We talked specifically about one of the causes of burnout is lack of purpose or meaning. Last year, friend and fellow business coach Alan Kovitz published, “A Book of Values” outlining 52 distinct values for leaders to reflect on.As I read the book through the lens of this month’s topic, my favorite values are Fairness and Wellness. Fairness in the sense of leveraging the uniqueness and individual differences in the organization to the greater good of the team. Wellness in the sense of ensuring self-care of an organization’s most valuable resources, again to the greater good of the team! Click here to get your copy!Enjoy the Book!

...The Impact of Effective Communications on Sustainable SuccessThis month, we are proud to announce our 7th book is now available on Amazon! As we navigated the pandemic and continue to support leaders across all business model and industries, we realized that effective communication continues to be a common challenge to leaders at all levels. Thus, “Finding the Missing Piece, The Impact of Effective Communications on Sustainable Success” was born. The book addresses key issues at all three levels of leadership we previously outlined in our “Missing Piece” series of books previous published for Entrepreneurs, Non-Profit Leaders, and Corporate Leaders. The book continues to leverage the Business Alignment Maturity Model to ensure that effective communications not only occur at each level of leadership while also aligning throughout the organization from Vision to Desired Results and embedded in the organizational culture!Enjoy the Book!Lead Well!

During these uncertain times when many are in some degree of self-isolation and working remotely, it makes sense that there might be some time to catch up on reading. One of the leadership challenges we see, especially in an election year as we are in now, is the level of citizenship demonstrated across the landscape in the United States. When we speak of leadership, we often speak of the ground rules of effective leadership. As we’ve spoken often, “Leaders read!” When we speak of citizenship, the same idea applies. It is those ground rules that are behind our recommendation for what to read this month. If you have not yet read, or recently read, the Constitution of the United States, this may be a great time to begin. Click here to begin reading!Lead Well!

This month we focused our discussion on strategic leadership and the key skills necessary to effectively lead a 21st Century organization. Given that organizational leadership is a team sport, it is only fitting that we highlight a new book by Gordy Curphy, Dianne Nilsen and Robert Hogan, “Ignition, A Guide to Building High Performance Teams” The authors set out to create a very practical book to help teams develop regardless of the type of team they are. The book aligns nicely to their research-based Team Assessment Survey as well as the Rocket Model which I use specifically in both my business and leadership coaching as well as my graduate teaching of MBA students.My favorite chapter is Chapter 10 where the authors spend an entire chapter specifically talking about C-Suite Teams. These are the top leadership teams in any business, for-profit or non-profit who essentially guide the strategic direction of the business....