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Recommended Resources – Look At More

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StrategyDriven Recommended ResourcesLook at More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth, and Change
by Andy Stefanovich

About the Book

Look at More by Andy Stefanovich details a framework for unleashing an organization’s creativity to develop new products, build brands and audiences, and grow market share. Andy’s framework specifically targets the liberation of the ‘5Ms’ of innovation:

  • Mood: attitudes, feelings, and emotions creating the context for creativity and innovation
  • Mindset: intellectual foundation of creativity, the baseline capacity each of us has for getting inspired, staying excited, and thinking differently
  • Mechanisms: tools and processes of creativity; helping individuals incorporate inspiration into the way they work and fostering innovative behaviors
  • Measurement: qualitative and quantitative assessments providing employees with direction and feedback
  • Momentum: active reinforcement of the creative behaviors supporting innovation

Benefits of Using this Book

StrategyDriven Contributors like Look At More for its immediately actionable framework that encourages and reinforces the behaviors unleashing an organization’s innovative creativity. Additionally, we appreciate the detailed examples Andy provides from his experience implementing the framework at world renown corporations.

Besides driving innovation, we believe organization implementing Andy’s methods will also experience an increased level of employee engagement that, in our experience, significantly enhances productivity and the bottom line.

Look At More prescribes an immediately actionable method for unleashing employee creativity to support achievement of organizational goals; making it a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Ten Questions that Motivate Engagement and Drive Greater Accountability

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Do you want to move an important project ahead faster? Would you rather motivate and engage than give orders and ride herd? How about inspiring greater accountability? Why do I ask so many questions? Because questions deliver better results.

As you read the questions above, I have no doubt that you at least began to consider answers. When someone asks questions – especially when you as a manager ask questions of a direct report – the listener can’t help but begin to formulate a response.

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About the Author

Helanie (pronounced yeh-LAH-nee) Scott has driven stunning leadership and cultural transformations for an impressive list of organizations including: Dr. Pepper, Reuters, Fluor, Ericsson, PepsiCo and more.

Raised in a small, South African mining town, by the age of 21 Helanie had set out on her own in Johannesburg, learned the ropes of the big city, and purchased the business that hired her. She emigrated to Canada and then to the United States, researching and studying leadership and organizational development, and growing her Align4Profit consulting firm.

The culmination of her life experience, years of business consulting, and colorfully diverse background manifests itself in her deeply personal Leadership Intimacy philosophy, which serves as the foundation of CoachQuest – a strategic and tactical learning organization based in Dallas, Texas, that caters to the behavioral and operational growth of leaders and teams with a focus on improving culture and results.

StrategyDriven Podcast Video Edition 4 – Employee Engagement: Untapped bottom line potential

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the principle, best practice, and warning flag articles found on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 4 – Employee Engagement: Untapped bottom line potential explores the principle components of employee engagement, mechanisms for achieving it, and quantifiable benefits realized over those not so well engaged.

Learn more about how to become truly StrategyDriven by reading: The StrategyDriven Organization.

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Thank you again for watching the StrategyDriven Podcast – Video Edition!

Can’t Live With ’em (But Can’t Live Without ‘Em): How to Manage – and Motivate – Challenging Employees

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If you’ve ever watched NBC’s The Office, you know that the show makes hilarious use of business-world stereotypes. Granted, the personalities, quirks, and antics of the employees of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company are taken to extremes, but we find them funny largely because they’re true. We know that guy – the one who cracks terrible joke after terrible joke, unaware that all he’s getting are eye rolls.

We’ve also encountered the sanctimonious perfectionist, the attention-seeking prima donna, the unhelpful duty-shirker, and many others.

Sure, it’s funny on TV… but in the real world, dealing with these characters can make leaders want to pull out their hair or throw in the towel entirely. Before you resign yourself to living in your own not-so-amusing TV show, let me offer some commonsense management advice.

First, know that there is no need for you to waste your time with poor performers or high maintenance employees who have an inflated sense of their own importance and ability.

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About the Authors

Michael Feuer cofounded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and $20,000 of his own money, a partner, and a small group of investors. As CEO, he grew it to more than 1,000 stores worldwide with annual sales topping $5 billion. He is also CEO of Max-Ventures, a venture capital and retail consulting firm, and founder and CEO of Max-Wellness, a comprehensive health and wellness retail chain that launched in 2010. After opening initial laboratory test stores in Florida and Ohio, a national roll-out is now underway. To read Michael Feuer’s complete biography, click here.

Dustin S. Klein, contributor and editor of The Benevolent Dictator, is the publisher and executive editor of Smart Business Network, publishers of Smart Business, the nation’s second-largest chain of regional business publications. He has interviewed thousands of senior executives and civic leaders across America. He is a regular presenter on business-related issues for public and private business audiences and is a frequent guest on television, radio, and Internet programs. To read Dustin Klein’s complete biography, click here.

Management Would be Easy if You Didn’t Have to Deal with People, part 3 of 3

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Conditions for Empowerment

We realize that so far this empowerment process looks fairly easy. Set the goals for everyone, establish their boundaries, and set ‘em all loose.

As you might guess, it isn’t quite that simple. But it’s not too far off really.

Before a manager can put a team member in an empowered environment, the manager must be satisfied that the team member can meet some very specific conditions. They’re quite straightforward, but they are absolutely critical.

There are three steps that we follow to ensure that our employees are correctly empowered – that they have both the responsibility and authority to conduct their activities effectively. We’ve already talked a bit about the first two: establishing goals and boundaries.

The third step is to ensure that the correct conditions exist between the manager and the employee. This third step is critical, but oftentimes it isn’t even considered. We’ve found that without these conditions, the employee and the manager are doomed to failure. There are three of these conditions, all of which are equally important, and all of which must be demonstrated by the employee to the manager:

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About the Author

John Cioffi received his first business education in his family’s restaurant and lodging business. He later held executive positions in several companies, ranging from start-ups to a Fortune 100. He has been a business coach for more than 15 years, is a frequent business speaker, and is a partner in GoalMakers Management Consultants. He received a BA from Colby College, a master’s degree from Dartmouth, and an MBA from Wharton.