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Executive Leadership Group, Inc.
Accelerating Strategy Execution
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Front PageArticles
Choosing the Right PMO Setup offers a fresh perspective on the topic of PMOs. The article appeared in the February 2001 issue of PM Network magazine.
Working across boundaries in large, siloed organizations can be a challenge. Here's how one small but wiry DoD organization is doing it with flare!
White Papers
The current thing for which you cannot be fired, no matter what your results, is installing "balanced scorecard." Our white paper, A Balanced View of Balanced Scorecard (October 2004) offers less than the usual wide-eyed enthusiasm for this current rage.
When metrics drive strategy instead of strategy driving metrics, then your organization has the disease called metric mania. While addressed specifically at the US Navy, any organization afflicted by metric mania will benefit from reading Are We Driving Strategic Results, or Metric Mania (December 2006).
Business Journal Column: Managing for Results
Why accountability still counts in corporate America - "We're all accountable," often means that no one is. Single point accountability is the antidote.
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'Resource sharing' approach could result in chaos - Sometimes employees must be shared by two or more managers. This "resource sharing" is tricky, but there are some ways to make it work.
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Responsibility + No Authority = Manager Burnout - Leadership and communication skills are important, but they're no replacement for management authority. The absence of managerial authority creates a predictable set of symptoms we call the NAG syndrome.
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Some tips for managing projects more effectively - Many managers don't know when or how to use the skill set called "project management."
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Empathic attitude can score points with customers - Handling angry customers, whether they are external customers or internal ones, can be exhausting. This column spells out a reasonably bullet-proof way to do it.
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Don't have a system meltdown like Hershey once did - Big, Hairy Systems Projects, such as SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft and the like can dramatically improve a company’s performance. Or, they can bring a company to its knees.
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Convincing employees to embrace change is no easy feat - Everybody wants things to be better, but nobody wants them to be different. That's the problem executives face when they attempt any major improvement: getting people to want to do things differently.
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First impressions are everything for new executives - It's tough being the new kid on the block. It's even tougher being the new kid in charge. So in our most recent Business Journal column, we offer tips on how executives can succeed in the precarious business taking charge.
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Successful business leaders share words of wisdom - The best consultant you could ever hire would be yourself - 10 or 20 years from now. But since that's impossible, the next best thing might be to ask successful leaders what they know now that they wish they had known sooner. And that's exactly what we did.
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On Head Chopping - For years now we've preached the need to look deeper than simple headcount reduction when cutting costs. In this Business Journal column, we explain the appeal - and some alternatives - to simple-minded head chopping.
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Resist efforts to run business like the government - Bureaucracy -- what it is and what to do about it.
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Some simple rules for communicating with executives - If you are an executive, then you probably need to coach your employees on how to communicate with you. If you are a middle manager, then you probably need to figure out how best to communicate with executives.
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How to manage a remote team - Managing a remote team can feel like pushing a turtle with three soda straws taped together.
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Strategic project control starts with asking right questions - Getting a handle on big projects is tough if you're the executive in charge. You don't want to get too far into the details; that's the project manager's job, not yours.
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Bad news rising - As both the Columbia and Challenger disasters taught us, cultures of denial do not work. Bad news MUST make its way to the top. But that's not always easy to achieve.
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Are Goals Stupid? Is your company's annual goal-setting a stupid, check-box-exercise, or a powerful way to implement strategy?
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Corporate restructuring continues, even as the economy improves - The strategy that leaders pick - out-sourcing, decentralization, whatever - won't matter if the tactics aren't right.
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There are 2 kinds of people; one can ruin your company - It's not hard to imagine that ILOCers fare better than ELOCers, as hundreds of studies have shown.
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Lessons learned, if shared, will help strengthen the business - Even good companies can seem incredibly dumb, especially when they make the same mistakes again and again, or don't exploit what they know. As with people though, dumb isn't always dumb; sometimes it's a learning disability.
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How not to derail your climb up the corporation's ladder - There are a lot of ways to derail a promising executive career.
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Detractors can't diminish worth of Skinner's, Taylor's innovations - In our final column we defend the reputations of a dead scientist and a dead engineer.
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Mini-Chapters for the book titled:Business Driven Information Technology: Answers to 100 Critical Questions for Every Manager by David Laube (ed.) and Ray Zammuto (ed.). It was sponsored by The College of Business at the University of Colorado, Denver. Published September 2003 by Stanford Press. It comprises the work of 60 authors. ELG provided these seven of the 100 mini-chapters:
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Why is it important to explicitly state the intended business result of an IT project? How should this be done? [Read]
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What role does a project's steering board need to play in the technology implementation process? [Read]
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What are the keys to getting cross-functional work done? [Read]
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What top ten actions can IT project managers take to increase the likelihood of implementation success? [Read]
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Interview
In this interview printed in PM Network (January, 1998), our president, Bill Casey, takes a different view on organizational hierarchy.
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