5 Attributes That Drive Strategy Execution

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet The start of a new year often marks the launch or refinement of strategy. Inherent in this process is change, acting in a new or different way. To execute a new strategy, leaders must identify advocates, change agents who work within the current system, and have the ability and will to drive the change necessary for the strategy to succeed. A key characteristic for strategy advocates is their capacity for critical thinking. In …

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Questions to Ponder

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet The holiday season can be hectic, but as the last year morphs into the new one, there are also rare, quiet moments that are opportunities for reflection. Take advantage of these occasions – from experience, you know that they will be much harder to find once your active work schedule again beckons. What were you able to accomplish last year? What worked, and what didn’t? Why is that? How …

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Two Points That Make Performance Discussions Matter

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet With the year-end approaching, ’tis the season of performance evaluations. Some organizations have abandoned the regimen of formal performance discussions, while others preserve a review process, often replacing annual discussions with quarterly or semi-annual ones. Opinions and rationales vary about the value of these individual assessments. But in this age of perpetual change, with its organizational demands for greater agility, innovation and improvement, the case for observing some performance management protocol is …

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Winning in the Customer-Driven Market

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet Businesses today operate in a customer-driven market. Everyone and everything is connected, everywhere and all the time. It’s a world of rapid and unpredictable change in which organizations are constantly adapting to meet evolving customers’ needs, never reaching a steady operating state. It’s a time that challenges the historical devotion to organizational bureaucracy as a means for improving results, placing conformity above all other cultural values at the cost of inhibiting initiative and imagination. Many companies believe …

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The Inspiration Equation

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Every change initiative is met with resistance is met with resistance from critics, skeptics and hold outs. And since change requires an investment of additional time and energy, above and beyond specific functional duties, people cannot be compelled to change; they must be inspired to accept the challenge of what must be done. John Maxwell, in his book  “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect,” describes how this inspiration depends first on communicating a message that connects with those …

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Are You Preparing for the “Age of Agility?”

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet In their book, “The Age of Agility,” authors Jason Gaulden and Alan Gottlieb describe how “we are in the early stages of a rapidly accelerating revolution that will bring automation and artificial intelligence into sectors of the workforce that have, until now, been spared this latest wave of disruptive change.” Corporate executives, academics, technologists, and economists agree that this disruption “will rival any technological upheaval in history in both scope and impact.” …

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3 Factors for Mastering Inspiration

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet To drive change, leaders inspire those they lead to invest extra time and energy in making a difference for themselves and their organization. They realize that mastering inspiration requires the synchronization of 3 factors: Their people trust that the leader has their back – that he or she understands what motivates and concerns them, is focused on them, and has high, but realistic, expectations of them. The leader is perceived as genuine and credible, consistently …

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Connecting

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet You may be trying to start a relationship, or a debate. It’s important that your message be received. To succeed, a connection must first be created, and that involves much more than your spoken words. Just 7% of what is stated is heard and believed; how your message is communicated, and what others see while you’re delivering it, conveys over 90% of your message, 38% and 55% respectively. Consider this the …

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The One Thing a Business Leader Must Do

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  Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet When small and mid-size business leaders are polled about the key factors that impact their success and that of their business, the responses include: Ensuring customer satisfaction Building a strong leadership team Executing the plan Driving change Pursuing innovation Hiring the right people Creating value Each of these contributes to success, but studies cite that the most important thing that a leader should do is focus – it’s the single most critical …

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Sustaining Change

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet You successfully launched an organizational change initiative. You answered questions about what is changing, what will remain as is, and why. You helped people understand how the change will affect them. You collaborated with others to develop and implement a change action plan, and adapted as circumstances evolved. Now you must sustain change momentum. Sustaining change is about changing habits. Aristotle said it best: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, …

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