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Take 15 Minutes to Save Your Job

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David Harper
Take 15 Minutes to Save Your Job Take 15 minutes, and save your job, your department, and possibly, your company. How? You won’t need your smartphone, laptop, phablet, email, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Periscope, text messaging, or IBM’s Watson for this. Just your head, a pen, a piece of paper, and 15 minutes. Now, think of the key roles in your team, department, and/or company. Got them? Good. Write them down…

Give Them the Gift of Experiences

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David Harper
Give Them the Gift of Experiences Last Christmas, my wife and I decided not to give gifts to each other. For previous Christmases, we each had said “no more gifts”, but one of us would ultimately violate the mandate and end up buying the other something. Well this year we each said, “No more gifts”, and we actually kept to it. Instead, we “gave” ourselves several dinners out, just the…

What’s Your Leadership Presence Smell Like?

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David Harper
On a recent weekend afternoon, I was out for a jog on a stretch of 2-lane road.  With no shoulder or sidewalk to use, I was running against what little traffic there was.  From about 30 yards and traveling at about 45 mph, a car approached.  And it slowed as it began to brake. The car was still a ways away when suddenly and out of nowhere, I was engulfed in…

3 Ways Leaders Can Avoid the VUCA Vortex

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David Harper
Last month we spoke of the VUCA vortex: the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that are challenging today’s leaders. We also noted several trends in leaders lives, namely: Significantly increased spans of control and responsibility; increased workloads and expectations; and an ever-commuting lifestyle based on mobile technology. Here are 3 things leaders can do to limit the fury of the VUCA vortex. 1) Focus more on the Important, and less…

Why are we leading in the “VUCA” vortex?

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David Harper
In 2007 and 2008, when the bottom fell out of the economy as well as many people’s jobs and careers, it set in motion a slew of factors that have led to a set of conditions that pundits have recently termed “VUCA” (an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity).  If you haven’t heard about it, no worries; you’ll likely see more references to it in the future.  Strictly speaking,…

Why the Universe Creates “Cry Potentials”

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David Harper
Why the Universe Creates “Cry Potentials” If I dropped a china plate on a tile floor, you’d expect to see it break and shatter into a million pieces. And if I waited for hours, you would never expect the fragments to re-assemble themselves back into the plate. Even if I waited years, you’d never expect that to happen. If you knock over a glass of milk, the milk naturally flows…

Why successful leaders focus on the 1%, not the 99%

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David Harper
“Learning is the most celebrated neglected activity in the workplace.” So states Gianpiero Petriglieri in a timeless HBR article. He continues: “Everyone says that learning is essential for companies’ success—and for your own. And yet, on a daily basis, who cares for your learning? No one. People care about what you have learned. They care about your results. Learning is great as long as you do it quietly, in your…

If You’ve Recently Failed at Something, Here’s Why You Should Cheer Up

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David Harper
If You’ve Recently Failed at Something, Here’s Why You Should Cheer Up If you’re human, you’re going to fail at something at some point.  Hopefully it won’t be a big mess, and hopefully it won’t be too public.  But safe to say, if you push yourself to succeed and push to achieve the famous “stretch” goals, at some point, the wheels will come of the track, and it gets ugly. But…

4 Key Behaviors for Frontline Leaders

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David Harper
McKinsey has recently published research on key leader behaviors (particularly among frontline leaders) based on a global study of 180,000+ people from 81 countries.  Of 20 possible behaviors, 4 emerged as noteworthy, accounting for 89% of the variance between between strong and weak organizations in terms of leadership effectiveness.  The 4 behaviors are (not in rank order): Be supportive Operate with a strong results orientation Seek different perspectives Solve problems effectively. Although McKinsey…

Canada Aggressively Recruits Skilled Talent

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David Harper
Oh, Canada! Canada recently announced its Express Entry program with the goal of attracting skilled talent from around the world.  Successful applicants would be provided an expedited path to permanent (not temporary) residency, with their application being processed in 6 months or less.  Candidates would be ranked according to various criteria, including language proficiency, education and work experience.  According to the government, each is a leading indicator of one’s likelihood of integrating…

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