In keeping with the re-release of the 80’s hit sitcom The A-Team as a feature film (I still remember Mr. T’s famous line, “I pity the fool”), and being asked by a client CEO how she can more effectively develop her bench of leadership talent, here are eight best practices for developing a relationship-centric A-Team:

1. Profile Your Strongest Relationship-Developing Leaders Today – When looking at your current leadership bench (direct reports as well as perhaps one or even two tiers down), identify pockets of relationship-development best practices.  Read the rest of this entry »

Symptoms: “That’s not how we do things around here,” “it works just fine,” “we tried that years ago and it didn’t work.”  Let’s perpetuate what worked last year.  That’s why we have org charts – so no one runs off the deep end and spends money on anything that wasn’t approved by “corporate.”  “The boss will never go for that; besides, it doesn’t seem practical or necessary.”  Let’s institutionalize initial metrics and insist that any innovation achieves its proper margin, order size or net price or be abandoned – regardless of shifting market demands or potential future growth. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking forward to hosting old friends from the Emory EMBA’00 Reunion.  Sharing and collecting good quotes about the impactful value of good wine:

“Good wine makes good blood;
Good blood causeth good humors;
Good humors cause good thoughts;
Good thoughts bring forth good works;
Good works carry a man to heaven.
Ergo:
Good wine carrieth a man to heaven.”
- James Howell, to Lord Clifford early seventeenth century

From Bob Zorowitz courtesy of Stephen Sondheim:

“Out of wine comes truth,
Out of truth the vision clears,
And with vision soon appears a grand design.
From the grand design
We can understand the world.
And when you understand the world,
You need a lot more wine.”

Players weren’t happy with the team’s leadership under Coach Raymond Domenech, so they refused to do their jobs. Team managers didn’t listen to the players, hurled insults, and lost control, and still another resigned. And now everyone is pointing fingers at each other.

It’s sounds like a typical day at any dysfunctional organization.

A lack of trust, respect and communication can doom any company — or any team — no matter how talented its players or employees or managers are, said David Nour, a consultant and author of “Relationship Economics” and “ConnectAbility”, who has also played and coached soccer.

Read the rest of the article here.

One of David’s favorite questions to ask senior executives early on in our relationships is: How is Your Bench … Really? Not typically something they are often asked, but certainly something every astute executive is thinking about right about now.  Watch the video below, then read the blog article written by David Nour in a previous entry.