Bob Schultek

Bob has more than 30 years of service as a senior sales and business development executive, CEO and business owner. His expertise includes customer-partnered business development, strategic planning, sales management, customer service, operational alignment, lean process analysis and improvement, quality assurance, and performance management. He has worked in the energy, medical device, bioscience & pharmaceutical, discrete and process manufacturing, packaging and distribution, communications and information technology, and business-to-business service industries.

Deciding What’s Next

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More than anything else they do, leaders make decisions about what to do next. And they make these choices amidst ever-changing priorities, with perpetual resource constraints, and typically, given the urgency, with about sixty to seventy percent of the situational knowledge they would prefer to have. The outcomes of their decisions may range from improving something or investing in an asset, to in a worst case, reacting to an existential threat. Because their decisions have …

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Change Expectations

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Leading is leveraging influence, inspiration, and information to motivate progress. Most progress involves change, so what should leaders expect when they launch a new initiative? Expect inconsistent commitment. Some on your team will be early advocates for your decision or strategy, but typically, most will need more information or time before committing. While your whole team is compelled to participate in implementing your plan, it will be impossible for it to succeed if most of …

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The Invaluable Leadership Quality

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There is one leadership characteristic that is seldom noticed, and rarely celebrated. And yet it stands alone among leadership qualities, as invaluable as it is scarce. Humility. What makes humility distinct is that it is most apparent when it is absent, when it is not exhibited; its impact more evident not when it is present, but instead, when it’s not. Humility is often overlooked as a vital leadership quality because it sometimes gets confused with a lack of …

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Process Improvement Lessons

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Process improvement projects must navigate disruptions, resource constraints, egos, and other challenges. And like the military’s awareness that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, the same is true for your project plan, substituting ‘reality’ for ‘enemy.’ Here are some project lessons learned for your consideration: – Every process has a primary constraint where work-in-progress builds. Find yours and design your new process to minimize that constraint’s impact on productivity. Then, find the next …

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Data and Stories

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Data is readily accessible to leaders. Often, there’s so much available that it consumes valuable time to carve out the facts which best fit a specific need. When that need is motivating your team to drive a change initiative or implement a strategy, revealing only the data is rarely enough to prompt action. Most people have a limited capacity to absorb data; share too much and it begins to sound like noise, with no compelling …

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The Quest for Transformation

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The prime directive for leaders is to make things better – to improve results, strengthen culture, develop talent, nurture relationships. Some leaders see their mission as going beyond improvement, to leading a transformation of their operation or business. But transformation can result in a broad array of outcomes depending on multiple variables including the circumstances of the business, the impact of the culture, or the experience and vision of the leader. Some transformations are small …

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Finding Equilibrium

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The new world of work continues to evolve. Companies are testing different mixes of virtual and in-person environments, seeking equilibrium between the needs of the business and those of their employees. Driven by market and resource competition, our dependence on technology, including virtual communication, keeps growing. Technology’s inevitable progress facilitates ever-improving productivity, versatility, and innovation. But together with these benefits, each technological advance also delivers negative consequences. Right now, while we’re learning how to best …

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Motivating Action

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Leaders create strategy, but they must rely on others to execute it. Motivating their teams to act on the strategy requires two attributes: 1.  Influence leverages the leader’s experience and credibility to persuade team members about the benefits of the strategy. Commitment to the strategy evolves as the team is encouraged to discuss why it’s necessary, and how its envisioned outcome creates value for the company and for them. This dialogue then enables action steps to be …

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Valuing the Customer Experience

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Customer relationships are the foundation of your business. Those that endure contribute to your sustainability while revealing insights about trends, changing market needs, feedback on strategy, and innovation opportunities – all valuable inputs for decision-making and value creation. But customer relationships are also fragile, and heavily dependent on the service experience that your business delivers, particularly when things don’t go as planned. Your customer-service personnel are your front-line relationship reps, the face of your business. …

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What Do You See?

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What do you see? Is seeing believing? While we see with our eyes, it’s actually our brains that interpret what we see. And, more than one part of the brain is involved. For example, we ‘see’ shapes before we ‘see’ colors, and then ‘see’ context. These first stages of visual processing occur unconsciously, so we actually have no idea what information our brain is initially gathering from our visual images. Scientists have confirmed that existing …

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