Kent Blumberg

Is it safe for your employees to disagree with you?

Timothy G. Habbershon writes this morning, on BusinessWeek OnLine, about "unsafe" CEOs.  Unsafe CEOs are those who employees are afraid to approach - with information, questions or suggestions.

Potential Problem Analysis - Planning not to fail, or Planning to Win?

I read, enjoy and learn from Jeffrey Phillips' blog, Thinking Faster.  Most often, I agree with what he has to say.  Monday, though, he said,

"I understand the rationale for seeking out the likely problems and trying to mitigate them early, but often I think we create a negative mindset by constantly planning not to fail."

While I agree that we don't want to kill optimism, looking for problems in our plans is a key to success.  Failing to look for potential problems is planning to lose, in my book.

Year-end Reflection

Over at "Life Beyond Code" Rajesh Setty offers two questions to ask yourself and your team at year-end:

"What are your significant contributions to the world this year?"

"By how much has your ability to make a difference in the world increased as compared to last year."

Can't get much more clear and simple than that.  And if you want a bit more, recall these questions from Max DePree's book, "The Art of Leadership."

[Thanks to Carolyn Manning for pointing out Rajesh's blog.]

Time Management via Damone Virgilio

Damone Virgilio, Staff Development Manager at the Memphis Public Library, writes a blog called LEAP (Leadership.Empowerment.Achievement.Program).  Last month he shared a slide show about fourth generation time management. 

Mike Schaffner expansion of the Five Whys

Mike Schaffner has a nice expansion on the five whys on his blog today.  From several sources he collects other useful problem solving questions, such as:

• How do you know?
• What do you mean?
• What then?
• What would happen if?

Check it out.  Great resource.

The NCO Creed and Servant-Leadership

I have written here before about servant-leadership.  Simply put, a servant-leader is a steward of the resources under his care, and seeks to serve those he leads while still getting bottom-line business results.  In a November 3 post, Bill Waddell showed how Army Non-commissioned Officers are, essentially, servant-leaders.  Bill also provided a link to the NCO Creed, which has lessons for all of us who lead.