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.

3 Agreements to Resolve Conflicts

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Leaders driving change to improve results are continually resolving conflicts. They succeed by exercising empathy and securing three agreements:  Agreeing on reality. The current situation is accurately described and validated by facts.  Agreeing on goals. Realistic goals are specified and accepted, while acknowledging diversity in how they can be achieved.  Agreeing on vision. Having agreed on existing reality and attainable goals, commitment is secured when the successful outcome is envisioned and shared. These three agreements forge a bond of common purpose …

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Improving Leadership ROI

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Leaders are hired to be influencers and change agents who will improve performance. Their success hinges on motivating people to follow their lead, collaborating with them, rather than directing them, to change what is necessary to achieve their shared goals.   Because leaders are expected to drive change, and not just adapt to it, mastering leadership is increasingly about the continuous process of learning how to inspire and engage with their teams to produce productive change. Building on their natural talents, strengths and experience, leaders are …

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Prevailing in the Customer-Driven Market

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Today’s market is more customer-driven than ever before. Everyone and everything is connected, everywhere and all the time.  Companies with ready access to formidable technology or “big data” believe that this gives them an advantage, but in reality, high connectivity makes this access available to many. Technical advantage is not long sustainable, and the bulk of generated data is often produced by looking inward at the business, i.e. product margins, run rates, etc., rather than by looking outward …

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3 Ways to Launch Productive Change

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In today’s increasingly flat, networked and collaborative organizations, leaders seeking to drive productive change actively engage with their teams to make something better that improves performance, strengthens competitive advantage and creates strategic value.  Most teams want to do meaningful work, to make a difference beyond their functional responsibilities; but they need their leaders to provide direction and grounds to act on this aspiration. Their leaders perceive change initiatives as opportunities to produce positive outcomes while enabling them to practice and refine their relational, communicative, interpretive, and affective skills. So all …

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Considering Problems and Opportunities

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There are always problems – a parade of challenges that command your attention. Systems are down, people or organizations are working against you, or there’s a compelling difficulty without a resolution.  There are always opportunities – innovative ideas or new relationships waiting to be embraced. These are chances to create value, to share or give, to move faster or make something better.  And there are always limits – limited time, energy, money and other resources.  Where do you …

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Winning at Strategy

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Strategy execution is essential, but only possible when the strategy is realistic. And once you invest in execution, it’s difficult to turn away when it becomes clear that the strategy is not working.  To avoid wasted time and energy, consider Roger Martin’s (HBR) approach to strategy development. Rather than focusing too heavily on SWOT or other analyses, or on broad, future-based projections, or direction changes, Roger suggests that answering the following five connected questions, which flow logically …

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Was Your Message Received?

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Communication succeeds when the message is received.  Communication experts counsel that less than 10% of the words you speak are heard and acknowledged. How your message is communicated accounts for about 40% of a successful message receipt, with the remaining 50% related to what your audience observes while you’re delivering your message.  Successful communications connect with the audience in 4 ways: What people see (visual connection): All communication creates an impression of the communicator that either strengthens or weakens the …

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3 Qualities of a High Performance Culture

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“Culture can account for up to half of the difference in operating profit between two organizations in the same business.” (Heskett @ Harvard) Consider these 3 qualities of a high performance culture: Across the organization, there is a shared ownership for customer success and business progress. People understand how they create value by making a difference for customers, for each other and for the Company. The purpose and profit motives for the business are aligned. Cross-functional collaboration and …

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Conflict and Commitment

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There can be no team commitment without a dialogue that captures every team member’s opinion. And without commitment, there can be no shared ownership of a decision, and no shared accountability.  As a leader, you may believe that you already know the best way forward. You may be reluctant to open a discussion which could generate information that is inconsistent with your preconceived conclusions. You might even feel that your ideas are threatened by such a …

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The Hard Part

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When I was a CEO, one of the lessons I learned over and over again, was that our business lived on the street, with the customers…not in our facilities.  While our Operations personnel made essential contributions to the success of the business, delivering on promises made by our marketing, sales and customer service folks, they operated primarily with established expectations and known variables around product, process, and due dates. They challenged the status quo to make us better, …

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