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Six Leadership Actions To Leverage Employees' Differences To Strengthen Teams

The new book, All The Difference: Six Leadership Actions To Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value , teaches how leaders can turn their team's individual differences into deeper trust, greater creativity, and winning results.   “The greatest risk of unmanaged difference isn’t conflict: it lies in the ideas, insights, and opportunities that may never surface,” explain the book’s authors, Susan MacKenty Brady , Stuart D. Kliman , and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith .   They suggest that you look around your team to fully see people with different communication styles, perspectives, cultural norms, and capabilities. These differences are expressed in all kinds of ways, such as casual gestures in a meeting, a colleague's opinion on a current event, or an intense work style.   Often, those differences can lead to friction, even conflict. You may try to manage around them. But, for you and your organization to fully leverage the strengths of your team’s diffe...
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How To Lead In An Era When Everything Is Being Displaced

  Today, leaders are caught in a cascade of contradictions. The technology that promises unprecedented capability also delivers unprecedented doubt. Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes everything faster, cheaper, and more capable. It also makes the most fundamental question of leadership unavoidable:  what are humans actually for?  You did not choose this moment. But you are responsible for who you and your organization become in it.   In  Re-Placed: Answering The Call Of Leadership In The Age Of AI , leadership strategist and CEO Kari Zeller offers something rare in the AI conversation: a leadership book that starts with the human, not the technology.   “The arrival of artificial intelligence doesn't have to displace us,” explains Zeller. “But it will, unless we learn to  re-place  ourselves first—to consciously reposition who we are, how we lead, and where we create value in a world where intelligence is no longer ours alone.”   “Being re...

How Great Leaders See Differently

“Your decisions are only as good as the world you can see,” explain the authors of the new book, The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently . “And in a rapidly shifting business landscape, the most successful leaders learn to see more.”   Authors Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith explain that talented leaders don’t fail for lack of intelligence or experience. Instead, they fail because they make decisions based on a partial view of their environment and miss critical insights.   As you read the book, you’ll learn that panoramic intelligence is about training yourself to see through more than just your own lens. It’s learning to consider the perspectives of the full range of stakeholders who affect your company—including ones who wouldn’t traditionally be considered in stakeholder profiles. It’s about stepping back to see the bigger picture.   Choe and Goldsmith explain further that panoramic leadership consists of three lenses:   Inner Lens – How...

The Science And Secrets Of High-Performing Teams

Ron Friedman ’s new book, Superteams , is the best book about teams and team building that I have ever read and have reviewed on my blog. It’s all about what the best teams do differently.   It’s packed with counterintuitive insights, surprising science, and real-world lessons "from the most comprehensive study of elite groups ever conducted" reports Friedman. Read through it once and then keep it handy to refer to repeatedly. The 50-plus strategies for how a team does its best work are invaluable.   Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. He reports that “the results upend everything we think we know about teamwork. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours.”   What really sets them apart, according to Friedman, is the way they:   Manage their energy and attention. Bring out the best in one another. Keep improving...

Playbook For Building A High-Performing, Resilient Organization With Purpose

“It’s time to get intentional about organizational culture and to make it strong on purpose,” explain James D. White and Krista White , authors of the book Culture Design: How To Build A High-Performing, Resilient Organization With Purpose .   “Strong company cultures, deliberately shaped, are the difference between businesses that are great versus those that are just good enough,” they add.   The authors define organizational culture as a set of actions, habits, rituals, and beliefs that determine how work gets done, how decisions get made, and how people experience their workplaces.   "Strong cultures don't emerge by accident," share the authors. "They're built—with clarity, consistency, and design. This book is your guide to intentionally designing a culture that is resilient, inclusive, powerful, and effective."   Informed by over thirty years of operating experience across sectors and in the boardroom, the authors offer these strategies for designin...

The Ordinary Skills Of Exceptional Leaders

New York Times -bestselling author, chartered psychologist and Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School, John Amaechi , has released I t’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills Of Exceptional Leaders .  It’s an important read for particularly managers, executives, board members, and other business leaders, and anyone else expected to motivate and inspire others to achieve great things.   The book walks you through the seemingly obvious but difficult-to-nail mindsets and intentions you’ll need to adopt to influence and motivate others. You’ll learn strategies and techniques you can apply immediately, including:   Easy-to-follow explanations of the straightforward behaviors you can model to improve your ability to lead others. Habits you can adopt immediately to motivate others in any setting, from the boardroom to the classroom or the battlefield. Data-driven insights into the tiny, little things that great leaders do every day and how to incorporate th...

How To Conduct A Successful Post-Merger Integration

  Most business leaders think that mergers fail because of bad strategy or overpaying. But according to former senior partner at McKinsey and Harvard Business School’s David Fubini , that’s not where deals break down. They fail in what comes during and after integration.   More specifically, “Integration is what makes or breaks the success of a deal. Not design, not financing, not due diligence, not negotiations of structure,” says Fubini. “Because no matter how expertly you manage these elements, if you can’t bring all the pieces together, all your efforts might as well have been an academic exercise."   Fortunately, in his new book, Post-Merger Integration: Building The Mindset, Skills, And Discipline Needed For Deal Success , Fubini (along with Patrick Sanguineti ) offers a behind-the-scenes look at how deals actually succeed and where they go wrong. And he shows leaders how to develop an Integration Mindset that will enable you to navigate the complex, nuanced reality...