Insights

From building trust to gaining alignment to influencing and navigating change , each one of these outcomes depends on the ability to communicate effectively. On the other hand, the cost of poor communications can be significant for the business. According to a study done by Salesforce, 86% of employees and executives cite the lack of effective communications as the main cause for workplace failures. The ability to communicate effectively and with impact is more critical than

The most critical component of growing a business is ensuring that you have the right leadership talent to support the goals of the organization and the maturity stage it is in. For example, in the early stages of a company the CEO and the executive leadership team need to focus on understanding customers, designing products and services, and selling solutions to the market. However, as the company stabilizes its growth, the leadership needs to prioritize building the intern

The ugly secret, not so secret truth about designing organizational structures is that many organizational design/redesign efforts fail. Most do so because there is a lack of understanding of what the organization truly needs and what motivates people to do their best work. In other words, most organizational redesign efforts are embarked on with little effort to holistically understand the existing conditions, the vision for the organization and what truly is keeping the peo

Bob is an energetic leader in a large firm. His days are filled with a multitude of meetings and conferences. Many of these meetings are his weekly one-on-one sessions with his direct reports and peers. Bob has on several occasions expressed how important and valuable it is for him to do these weekly one-on-one meetings with his employees and colleagues to give them space to share their concerns, brainstorm ideas, and provide update on their accomplishments. Yet, despite Bob’

Salima Hemani, PCC, SHRM-SCP President, SZH Consulting LLC Many successful organizations do a great job of protecting, investing in and nurturing their top leadership . Fewer among those have the strategies and systems in place to identify and develop the next generation of leaders through succession planning programs. However, for companies to compete, survive and thrive in this increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, the important “work”

Salima Hemani, PCC, SHRM-SCP President, SZH Consulting LLC Accountability and responsibility are two wheels of the same cart. You need both in place, working together, to move forward. Yet, many leaders and organizations tend to use these interchangeably. Or worse, they often assume that just delegating the responsibilities without setting up clear accountability measures will lead to success. Unfortunately, lacking a culture of accountability in the workplace can spell doom

The pace of change and disruption that our communities, organizations and we as individuals have experienced over the past several months is unprecedented . And this type of unwanted, overwhelming change can stunt us in our paths. We think less clearly, and we may see threats that do not exist. Our perception gets narrower. We become more self-protective and tribal versus open and collaborative, and we may be tempted to focus on transactional tasks versus taking a step back a

One of the most important capabilities that any strong leader needs to demonstrate is their ability to build effective relationships . And one of the most critical relationships, which doesn’t get enough attention, is a leader’s relationship with their boss — whether that be one person or a board. Your relationship with your boss could be pivotal to your success or failure as a leader. You can leverage that relationship in several ways, from obtaining valuable information and

In today’s VUCA world, leaders are under pressure to continuously evolve and transform their organizations unlike we’ve seen in the past. The expectations are high, budgets are slim, and employees are often not ready to embrace the change. The combination of these factors creates an uber-stressful environment for change leaders in which their tenacity, resilience and patience to endure these conditions long term, and successfully implement the change gets put at risk. Many y