June 18, 2013
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Gabor Holch
Busy people take pride in making every minute count. Our calendars are full of back-to-back tasks and appointments, and thanks to smart phones our schedules follow us everywhere. Does this mean that we get no breaks?
In fact, people will need breaks – that is a fact of life. If we get no breaks, we will take them anyway. Some of our best ideas come during breaks. On the other hand, breaks can spin out of control and interfere with productivity. That doesn’t have to be that way.
Read the article on the Gallup Management Journal.
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Gabor Holch
People and companies start discovering that an office is not always the best place for work. On one hand, social and creative people feel stuck in an office environment, especially if it is a phalanx of tiny work stations. On the other, empty offices and work stations are on the ready for employees who never turn up, because they work at client sites, run from meeting to meeting or spend their lives in planes and airports.
Telecommuting (working from a chosen location such as home or a cafe) seems to be the solution. In some of the most developed economies of the world, close to a third of people work wherever they want to. But there are a couple of essentials to consider before a company can switch to a new way of working.
If done properly, a flexible work arrangement can make miracles to productivity, cost-efficiency and morale. Based on simple guidelines of corporate strategy building, here are the basic decisions to make before your company can take a leap into the future of employment.
Gabor Holch
One of the most recent trends in management and leadership development is using the ‘soft power’ of coaching. Part of this trend is an increasing number of coaching certifications, which often becomes an obligation for managers. Yet, I have seen much more managers with coaching certifications than managers who actually coach their teams on a regular basis.
A coaching certification is rapidly becoming one of the most common decoration items on managers’ office walls. But only a fraction of them actually use their coaching skills. Is it a good investment to become an internal coach… and should you?
Here at Campanile we are huge fans of coaching, if it is done properly. Here is how to avoid your coaching certification become a distant memory a year after you got it.
Read the article on the Gallup Management Journal.
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Read the article on the Gallup Management Journal.
Share this!
Through LinkedIn:
Through email or social networking tools:
Gabor Holch
In our work with executives, the issue of work-life balance comes up increasingly often. This is especially true in busy times such as the current spring high season in business.
Here is why we at Campanile do not like the concept of ‘work-life balance’.
Balancing is a tiresome and inconvenient act. In the short run it can give you some sense of success and can even be fun. However, over time trying to balance your work with non-work ‘life’ will just add to your stress level.
Here is why, and what a better approach is.
Obsession with control, office politics and unnecessary procedures are some of the most hateful things in a work environment, according to the hundreds of interviews we have conducted. They are also the most destructive to personal and organizational efficiency. We have recently found a great article on the Gallup Management Journal, which traces all of them back to one basic source: Fear.
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Gabor Holch
Try to recall at least one occasion where a project got stuck and all sides blamed the others for the delay.
We run into this situation quite often. Too many projects feel like ‘my baby’ as long as they are full of potential, but quickly get abandoned when they start struggling.
It is easy for people to throw up their hands and declare the incompetence of others. Yet, stuck projects are like half-finished buildings. Your investment and work is already in them.
Gabor Holch
I find the word “visionary” one of the most controversial terms in leadership, both theory and practice.
The very concept of being a leader is often associated with being a visionary.
Go on Google (or any of your favourite search engines) and do an image search for “leader” or “leadership”. What you will find is a visual representation of being visionary: A lone silhouette on a mountain top or a business-suited figure gazing out in the distance. The most featured leaders in such searches are visionaries such as Gandhi, President Kennedy, founders of religions and political revolutionaries.
Yet, being a visionary is just one of the many elements of leading people to success, and it is far from being enough to make you a good leader.
I work a fair deal with technical professionals promoted to leadership positions. Many of them pull an annoyed grimace when they hear the V-word, and they have a reason to do so. Overemphasizing the visionary leadership style does a lot of injustice to efficient leaders world wide who put the emphasis elsewhere.
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