Leadership

3 Jan, 2014

Why Most of Us Won’t Achieve Our New Year’s Resolutions

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:37+00:00January 3rd, 2014|Accountability, Leadership, New Year's Resolutions, Personal Development, Results|

Most of the talk about New Year’s Resolutions is just that – talk. Despite all of our good intentions, most of us won’t achieve our goals for the year. Research released by the University of Scranton Psychology Department reports that only 8 percent of Americans are regularly successful in achieving their resolution. 49 percent achieve occasional success, and 24 percent are never successful. So in other words, the odds are stacked against you even if you set a goal for the New Year

23 Dec, 2013

Defining a Good Change: It is More Than Results

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:37+00:00December 23rd, 2013|Business Growth, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

Every change is evaluated against the result AND the damage inflicted during its implementation. Ignore the people side of the change (feelings and perceptions), and it is only a matter of time before the desired results suffer, too. The type of change needed in today’s successful organizations is continuous. It is generated from every level, and it requires engagement and commitment from those involved. You can mandate compliance. Commitment and engagement to make change work are volunteered when you focus on more than the end result.

18 Dec, 2013

A Result to Remember: It’s Not the Product. It’s the People.

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:37+00:00December 18th, 2013|Accountability, Business Growth, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

Delivering customer service – at least the way it is practiced in most companies – is easy. The customer asks you for something, and you give it to them. Building a culture that is obsessed with serving customers is hard. Carl Sewell’s family of auto dealerships is at or near the top for sales and service with the brands they represent for one simple reason: They are the best at sustaining a culture that serves customers.

27 Nov, 2013

The Missing Measure that Drives Culture Change

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:38+00:00November 27th, 2013|Accountability, Business Growth, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change|

Culture change follows behavior and performance change not the other way around. If you buy into that premise, the behavior and performance you expect, enable, measure, reward, and hold people accountable for will become the habits that define the culture. The best organizations have clarity, alignment, and execution across each of these areas. And that leads to the question of “how do you know a change is taking place?”

14 Oct, 2013

Three Lessons About Leading Change from the Debt Ceiling Chaos

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:38+00:00October 14th, 2013|Accountability, Business Strategy, Communication, Corporate Culture, Government & Politics, Integrity & Ethics, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change|

There has to be something we can learn from Washington’s failure to address the debt limit, right? There are three very important lessons about leading change you can take from the chaos over approving the federal budget and raising the debt ceiling.

23 Sep, 2013

Deliver the Best Customer Service

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:38+00:00September 23rd, 2013|Accountability, Business Growth, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Results|

Don’t worry about the sale. Just take care of the customer. Give the customer the best customer service you can deliver, even if the customer isn’t buying, and eventually the sale will come.

12 Sep, 2013

Connect with People Where They Are

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:39+00:00September 12th, 2013|Business Growth, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change|

Imagine this: An e-mail arrives from the chief executive officer of your company with the following message: It is no secret that the past few years have been a struggle. Our competitors are buying market [...]

12 Sep, 2013

The Problem and Opportunity with Change

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:39+00:00September 12th, 2013|Accountability, Leadership, Leadership Development, Leading & Managing Change|

Another blog post about change? Really? The last three I posted aren’t enough? How about the thousands of other books, blogs, and articles on the subject? I am with you. I don’t need to hear [...]

24 Aug, 2013

Another Book About Change?

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:40+00:00August 24th, 2013|Book Reviews, Business Growth, Business Strategy, Communication, Corporate Culture, Innovation, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change|

Why did you write a book about change? The host of a recent radio interview was being polite and, I suspect, genuinely interested. But the question is an important one—a quick search on Amazon.com found over 150,000 book titles that have something to do with change. Let’s assume that some of those titles are duplicates for hardcover, paperback, Kindle, etc. That still leaves thousands of books written on the subject. Aren’t those enough? The short answer is, “No.”

13 Aug, 2013

Connect with People Where They Are

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:40+00:00August 13th, 2013|Business Growth, Business Strategy, Communication, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

Scott Keller and Carolyn Aiken, consultants at McKinsey & Company, suggest that 80 percent of what leaders care about and talk about when trying to enlist support for change does not matter to 80 percent of the workforce. To gain the commitment for the change that you want, you must connect with people where they are. You do that by making the change relevant and real.

4 Aug, 2013

The Problem and Opportunity with Change

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:40+00:00August 4th, 2013|Accountability, Business Growth, Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

Another blog post about change? Really? The last three I posted aren't enough? How about the thousands of other books, blogs, and articles on the subject? I am with you. I don’t need to hear another message that changes are coming and I need to get on board. And yet, we are confronted with this reality: Most of our efforts to make change work don’t work as well as we had hoped … or even at all.

28 Jul, 2013

Good Change – Bad Change

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:41+00:00July 28th, 2013|Business Strategy, Communication, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change|

Don Draper, the fictional advertising guru on the television show “Mad Men” says, “Change is neither good or bad. It simply is.” Good luck convincing your team of that. We all want the change we [...]

23 Jul, 2013

The New Normal Has Happened Before

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:41+00:00July 23rd, 2013|Business Growth, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

“When will things get back to normal?” That question has been asked countless times since the economic meltdown of 2008. Most people want to know when the job market will bounce back; the economy will return to something close to sustained growth; uncertainty will subside; or the rate of change will slow to a more manageable pace. But, what if this is it? What if instability, rapid change, and uncertainty are the new normal? And, what if I’m wrong and things bounce back quickly? If you can succeed now, you will crush it then.

14 Jul, 2013

Dodos and Coyotes: Only the Nimble Survive

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:41+00:00July 14th, 2013|Accountability, Business Strategy, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leading & Managing Change, Results|

Your long-term success will quite possibly come down to a simple question: Are you a dodo bird or a coyote? Learn if you have what it takes to thrive in a world of constant change.

9 Jun, 2013

The Scary Side of Mentoring

By Randy Pennington|2016-10-29T15:29:42+00:00June 9th, 2013|Book Reviews, Business Growth, Corporate Culture, Leadership, Leadership Development, Results|

The old-fashioned view of mentoring is someone outside a learner’s chain of command who equips that learner with new skills and knowledge. It is an archaic expert to novice or smart to unwise philosophy. The goal is the transfer of information or expertise, much like pouring knowledge into the head of a passive learner. It is the model that antiquated teachers used to teach facts students only recalled long enough to score favorably on the test.

Previous 111213 Next