Archive for May, 2008
In this podcast, we discuss how corporate change programs can feel like “sugar highs” to people where the energy spikes up for a short moment and then the program is quickly abandoned and is replaced or overshadowed by the next wave of change programs. In this mode, some leaders start to believe the old saying that, “people hate change.” We talk about how that actually isn’t true. The truth is that people don’t hate change, they hate corporate change programs. Our challenge as leaders is to break that cycle and approach strategic transformation and change in a way that engages people, creates ownership and produces breakthrough results. It can be done.
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By: Michael Kanazawa
Podcasting has become a new form of personal expression as well as a very targeted media channel. Through the experience of launching the book, I’ve been diving head first into the world of podcasting.
The greatest surprise for me has been finding individuals who are passionate about some specific content. They are not focused on content that will support advertising business models, but rather content that is purely focused on what interests them and their listeners.
One of those people, Brian Oates, of Imprint at Daxle.net recently interviewed me for his series of author interviews. In preparing for the interview, I became curious about how he got into the “business” of podcasting and what he gets in return…as in profits. It was a bit forward to ask, but he had just finished interviewing me and I was curious. (more…)
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In this Quick Start Tip we talk about one of the biggest impediments to business growth, which is a lack of focus that goes far enough to create task overload, organizational gridlock that feels to employees like corporate attention deficit disorder. We discuss specific ways to get your organization more focused to gain the ability to take your big ideas to big results.
by: Michael Kanazawa
CLO Magazine’s associate editor, Lindsay Edmonds Wickman, recently wrote a piece about how to better integrate people, operations and strategic initiatives across the business, titled From Ideas to Results: The CLO’s Role. The story is based on our BIG Ideas to BIG Results process and approach. For the article, Lindsay and I talked about the fact that too often, people development is treated as a separate activity from strategic planning which is also often separate from running operations. This lack of alignment puts CLOs in a difficult position of trying to drive people initiatives that may not be viewed as integral elements of executing the strategy. There are ways to improve the alignment that are outlined in the article. The article was sent out as an Executive Briefing to CLOs and other senior HR executives, but is useful for all types of leaders and managers who want to better enable their organizations to generate big ideas and turn them into big results.
The read the full article at the CLO Magazine site, click here.
by: Michael Kanazawa (note: picture source from Lisa Haneberg’s Management Craft blog)
Just recently, Lisa Haneberg had me join her for a “Fireside Chat” podcast for her popular management blog, Management Craft. During the interview she started talking about her favorite sentence in the whole book, and I knew just what she was talking about. The sentence is, “Denial is the opium of losers.” In the podcast we talk about what that means and how to avoid the problems it can cause. She also pointed out several other real keys to the book with amazing accuracy. Although we don’t quite solve every business problem in the world, we do talk about a new mantra to live by that should replace the old and ineffective phrase, “do more with less.”
You can listen to the podcast and read her post about the podcast or just listen to the podcast here.
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.