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Zen leadership: January 2013
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2013_01_01_archive.html
Thursday, January 31, 2013. Lead from the Widest Circle First. I am going out on a limb with this and my previous post, as I'm delving into a leadership topic that, outside of religious or spiritually-centered leadership literature, is generally avoided: namely, love. Nevertheless, in an organizational leadership context, if my actions are governed by love, I will be an exceptional leader. What does that mean, exactly? In my last post, Poems in a Drawer,. I wrote about the connection between love and lea...
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Zen leadership: February 2013
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2013_02_01_archive.html
Thursday, February 28, 2013. The Culture / Strategy Linkage. Aspirational Culture is at the top of my Strategic Leadership Pyramid, not vision, not mission. It is my firm belief that an organization that focuses on building culture first will be far more successful than an organization that focuses on building vision first. In other words, I'd put my money on an organization with a powerful culture and no plan before I'd put my money on a powerful plan and a weak culture. Just as individuals have habits,...
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Zen leadership: November 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_11_01_archive.html
Wednesday, November 2, 2011. Carrying Strategy from the C-Suite to the Reception Desk. The challenge organizational leadership faces is carrying strategy from the board room to the receptionist's desk. That is, extending strategy mindshare throughout the organization, not just among those at the top of organizational chart. In my last post. I promised to provide more detail on the "how-to" of developing a broader context on organizational strategy among the "doers," as well as measuring strategic mindset.
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Zen leadership: December 2010
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2010_12_01_archive.html
Saturday, December 11, 2010. Busyness as a Form of Laziness. It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock. Of course, the Woody Allen quote above wasn't necessarily addressing the idea of work/life balance, but I think it's a great way to illustrate the perception that the ideal work/life balance is to overcome the day's challenges and be home by six. It's not that we don't know...
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Zen leadership: July 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_07_01_archive.html
Thursday, July 7, 2011. The "Every Option as the Best Option" Strategy. By accident, I discovered a new approach to strategy making (okay,. Never heard of it before so at least it's new for. Which I call the "Every Option is the Best Option" approach. I have a friend who said of life, "It's all just lessons and blessings." With that perspective, every scenario is a win-win. It comes from the realization that life's greatest moments often arise out of life's greatest tragedies. Our greatest sp...I'll bet ...
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Zen leadership: September 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_09_01_archive.html
Friday, September 30, 2011. Measure Mindset, Not Past Performance, In Strategic Execution. To build a strategic organization, not just strategic management, measure alignment rather than achievement. Another reason I discourage the checklist approach to strategic execution (i.e., leadership developing detailed goals/objectives/task lists) is that it limits implementation to those goals/objectives/tasks prescribed by management. With this in mind, as leaders, we should create broad limits within which to ...
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Zen leadership: February 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_02_01_archive.html
Thursday, February 24, 2011. I'm Jeff and I'm a Planaholic - The First Step in Recovery. I've seen a number of articles on why strategic plans fail. Any number of reasons are given:. No one takes ownership for implementation. Organizational culture kills the plan. The plan is too complicated or too rigid. Only top leadership knows the strategy. The plan hasn't been communicated. I'm sure if you've been through a strategic planning process more than once, you can add to the list. In and of itself. If the ...
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Zen leadership: September 2010
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2010_09_01_archive.html
Thursday, September 30, 2010. Leaders Discern What to Take and What to Leave Aside. Fushan Yuan Said: "Nothing is more essential to leadership and teachership than carefully discerning what to take and what to leave aside.". Zen Lessons translated by Thomas Cleary. Achieving objectives and meeting deadlines requires focus. If you were the chief surgeon in the ER whose skills were required only for the most critical cases, would you waste time treating a kid with a head cold? Productivity and effectivenes...
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Zen leadership: January 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_01_01_archive.html
Friday, January 14, 2011. Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. To effectively lead, knowing the answers shouldn't be a necessary prerequisite for action. In fact, many questions can only be answered by first taking action in the face of ambiguity. It Actual results eliminate the need for hypotheticals. In the end, it's the question "what's on the other side of this forest? That drives us forward, not knowing the answer. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).
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Zen leadership: March 2011
http://www.blog.zenleadership.net/2011_03_01_archive.html
Saturday, March 26, 2011. Leadership Needs to Focus in the Right Place to Build a Strategic Organization. The graphic below clarifies why traditional strategic planning methodology misses the mark in terms of leadership focus, and shows where leadership focus. Be This isn't rocket science, but for some reason it's a concept that not only many, but most, organizational leaders seem to be missing (including me until recently). It should now be clear why strategic planning methodology fails to build a strat...
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