Author: Eric Douglas Blog

Eric Douglas is the senior partner and founder of Leading Resources Inc., a consulting firm that focuses on developing high-performing organizations. For more than 20 years, Eric has successfully helped a wide array of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and corporations achieve breakthroughs in performance. His new book The Leadership Equation helps leaders achieve strategic clarity, manage change effectively, and build a leadership culture.

Managing Conflict

Part of managing decisions well is learning how to manage conflicts effectively. There are two types of conflict. One reflects differences in priorities, approaches, and ways of seeing things. This kind of conflict is natural, since it simply reflects different roles and different styles. Helping people figure out how to navigate these kinds of conflicts …

Strategic Planning Model – The Six Rings Model

This strategic planning model defines the six elements of a strategic plan and shows their relationship and inter-dependence. This is a valuable tool to use in guiding the strategic planning process. Download PDF The Six Rings Strategic Planning Model Overview: The Six Rings Planning Model starts with defining purpose and core values. A vision then …

Aligning Employees Around Organizational Core Values

Developing a high-performing company starts with defining its organizational core values – the actions and behaviors essential to the organization’s success. To do this successfully, you must engage your employees in a series of conversations about what it means to be a values-driven organization, what behaviors support the core values, and how important employees are …

The “Southwest Test”

Last week I met with an executive who’d called me in to help her with strategic planning and team building. I noticed right away her lack of eye contact and her brusque manner. What she told me was this: “I want to build a great team” and “I have an open door policy.” What I …

Building Trust in the Workplace

How do you accelerate the level of trust in your organization? The short answer: with lots of reciprocity. People feel trust because they are rewarded in many different forms of currency: customers with excellent service and follow-up communication, employees with recognition for a job well done and interesting opportunities, to name a few. But those …

5 Trends in Workplace Communication

Several trends are making competence in communication more important today than ever before. First, the need to respond quickly to market changes creates the need for a less rigid and bureaucratic work environment. Information must quickly flow up, down, and across traditional channels. No longer is it enough to have a few skilled communicators at …

Ubuntu

There’s a concept of community in South Africa that’s called “Ubuntu.” It emphasizes the interdependence of each member of the community. It recognizes a person’s status as a human being, entitled to unconditional respect, dignity, value and acceptance. But it also entails the converse. Each person has a corresponding duty to give respect, dignity, value …

Sharpening the Focus for Boards of Directors

Boards of directors clearly have ultimate decision-making authority for everything under their guidance. But in actual practice, many boards don’t exercise that authority. Staff often drafts a recommendation and brings it to the board to ratify. This may be efficient, but it casts the board in the role of “rubber stamping.” Over time, this erodes …

The Hidden Costs of Change

One of the biggest reasons that big initiatives fail is because people have failed to assess the hidden costs of change. The benefits of pursuing a given course – launching a new product, or expanding into new territory – may be outweighed by hidden costs that motivate certain people to cling to the status quo. Unmasking …

The Danger of Workarounds

Decisions can be very difficult to manage in settings where people aren’t used to accepting responsibility – or where the structure works against it. Position accountability (what the position is accountable for) and responsibility (what the person actually can do) can get wildly out of synch. This often is due to what we call “nichifying.” …

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