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.

Change or Progress

by

Leaders deal with change almost every day. Sometimes it’s intentional, meant to produce sustainable improvement. Other times, it can be a reaction to evolving circumstances. Many times, there’s a need to act with urgency. Whatever the motivation, rarely is change easy to implement. Leading a team from a known, comfortable situation toward an unknown one, is a fundamental and expected challenge of leadership. And the first milestone on this journey is achieving team commitment to the new direction. Promptly …

Read more

Building Enduring Relationships

by

Relationships are the essence of life. For businesses, and those who lead them, relationships are lifeblood. Enduring relationships are characterized by two defining principles – caring and responsibility. When leaders solicit suggestions, express appreciation, and share credit, they create a positive environment where employees feel valued and motivated. A more personal sense of caring is revealed when a leader seeks to learn what a direct report values, aspires to, and is motivated by. Leaders who …

Read more

Setting Team Expectations

by

Leaders don’t improve results all by themselves; the people in the business produce the results, because they want to grow and succeed. Leaders do create the conditions that enable those they lead to fulfill their aspirations, to achieve their Company, and their developmental, goals. One of these conditions is setting expectations. Once their expectations are understood, leaders can cultivate their team’s shared commitment – to one another and to goal achievement. Productive expectations include these …

Read more

Attributes of Successful Strategy Champions

by

Strategies are often launched or refined at the start of a new year. And while you may have conceived the strategy, its successful implementation often depends on those in your team who appreciate why the strategy is necessary, believe in it and your Company, and have the critical thinking and interpersonal competencies to drive it forward. During strategy implementation, there will be challenging moments that provoke cynicism and compromise morale. At such times, asserting authority …

Read more

The New Year’s Liminal Moment

by

The new year is off and running. Your schedule is filling, and the work is ramping up. It’s a unique liminal moment when you’re entering the portal of the new year, and can still look back at the last one. Before challenges and changing priorities capture much of your time, there’s an opportunity to assess your progress from ‘what is’ to ‘what can be,’ to evaluate what worked well and what must improve. Last year, …

Read more

Generosity and Appreciation

by

While the holiday season can be busy and demanding, take time to reflect and to consider the joyfulness of being with others. The holidays are a time of generosity and appreciation, kindled by our experiences with family, friends, and community. Generosity comes in many forms, and all of them are gifts, generating gratitude in the recipient and the giver. Author Seth Godin says it well: “Generosity and gratitude often go together. They light a path …

Read more

Shaping An Innovation Culture

by

Shaping your culture to nurture innovation begins by encouraging your people to challenge the status quo, asking what is possible. And doing so in a manner that preserves respect for the certainty, efficiency, and reduced risk that precedent has delivered. Since developing a novel technology or product is typically too lofty a goal and too risky a proposition for most businesses, it’s a more realistic expectation to motivate the exploration of what can be done …

Read more

Questioning Performance

by

The approaching year-end is a milestone that often triggers an assessment of performance, yours and those who produce yours. What’s your default approach for reviewing performance with your team? Does your discussion focus on goal status, and how you assess what a direct report did, or could do, to impact it? Or, do you probe how that person evaluates their performance, why it occurred, and what they need from you going forward? If this was …

Read more

Your Team’s Two Types of Labor

by

We know that the most effective teams collaborate, take ownership, and improve results. We know that the leaders who build these teams have the experience and emotional intelligence to understand how their mindsets and actions affect those they lead, enabling the development of trust that strengthens relationships and cultivates their teams’ shared accountability. And, we know that these leaders, who rightly acknowledge their responsibility to develop the talents of those they lead, continuously engage with …

Read more

The Prime Directive for Service

by

Customer relationships are valuable, fragile, and the foundation of your business. Your customer-service personnel are your front-line representatives, the face of your business. When something does not go as planned, how they respond to your customer-in-need makes all the difference in how that customer appraises the value of your relationship. How are your service people trained to respond? Do they deliver a scripted reply, based on what they can see on their computer screen, and …

Read more