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.

Why They Follow

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When employees are asked why they support their leaders, why they choose to follow them, the characteristic cited most often is credibility. Qualities like vision, communication skills, and high engagement always appear near the top of the list, but consistently, it’s credibility that scores highest. Credibility is typically a composite response, meaning that it is a compilation of replies to several different questions like: How consistently does your leader model your company’s core values? Do …

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For Strategies To Succeed

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“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night, with no lights, while looking out the back window. The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Peter Drucker Companies rely on strategic planning to help create their future. But often, the outcomes of strategic planning fall short of projections; 90% of strategies are never fully implemented. To be fair, few strategies survive first contact with …

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The Cost for Autonomy

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Daniel Pink cites 3 motivators that drive performance for those doing cognitive work: 1. Their purpose: yearning to do meaningful work that makes a difference, to do what they do in the service of something larger than themselves; 2. Their pursuit of mastery: striving to continuously improve “something that matters;” 3. Their desire for autonomy: wanting to direct their own lives. Daniel’s theory ranks autonomy as the primary motivator, and purpose as the 3rd . …

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Feedback Drives Performance

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The most effective and proven tool for improving performance is feedback. Positive feedback validates our strengths, and our sense of value in the workplace, increasing confidence and satisfaction. But it’s constructive feedback that teaches us and helps us grow; it reveals what others see, what they value about our contributions, and what they expect or need from us. Seeking feedback from others shows that we value their input, and are secure enough to hear how …

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Purposeful Reflections

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Last weekend, I gathered with classmates and cherished friends for our 50th college reunion. After revisiting time-worn stories and tired jokes, we began to reflect on our shared experience all those years ago. At that time, we had arrived at our esteemed university with just our dreams, and a common goal of learning and growing to build our future. Our hard work, the dedication of our teachers, and the values instilled by our families had produced the opportunity, but it was …

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Practice Makes Learning

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Business environments are increasingly dynamic, challenging leaders to promptly solve unique, divergent problems, often under substantial pressure. Because the pace of change, and the complexity of the issues, can test their experience and expertise, many leaders strive to learn new skills or behaviors that strengthen their competencies. Learning comes from doing, from practicing. An effective practice routine specifies a challenging goal, and identifies metrics to monitor progress; to be sustainable, it should include relevant, appropriate, and objective …

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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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