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Most change initiatives stall because middle managers and frontline employees don’t understand where leadership is going, what is expected of them and why it is in their best interest to get out of the stands and into the game! Below I share the winning formula to get your team onboard. Last week, I wrote about the most effective leadership communications methodology of which I am aware. It is an approach for which I would have paid big money during my tenure, leading organizations of 10,000+ employees spread across 500+ stores…”

  By Rob Andrews It has been my observation that the absence of an effective communications methodology lies at the heart of many a dysfunction and missed opportunity. This is no big surprise given the lack of attention communication receives in leadership literature. Thirty years ago, when the first wave of business re-engineering books called for a top to bottom re-think of every aspect of business, communication consistently showed up as an afterthought, if at all. Hammer and Champy’s Reengineering the Corporation, the top change management reference of its day,…”

By Rob Andrews My first real job was in a U-Totem convenience store, where I worked through  five different store managers and had an opportunity to observe how not to manage a business. My second job was in a small independent grocery store where I survived three management changes, command and control management, and more examples of what did and did not work. In July of 1970 I turned sixteen and was old enough to go to work legally. Having four years of full-time food retailing experience, I went to…”

  By Rob Andrews Let’s start with some terrifying 2023 factoids from six different sources: 46% of all new hires fail within 18 months. Source: Leadership IQ 50% of all hourly employees quit or are fired within their first 6 months. Source: Humetrics 40-60% of new hires in management fail within 18 months. Source: Harvard Business Review 82% of companies miss the mark on high-potential managerial talent. Source: Gallup Nearly 50% of new executive hires fail within 18 months. Source: Corporate Leadership Council Nearly 40% of CEOs outright fail in…”

  By Rob Andrews with paraphrased content from Vikas Mittal Alessandro Piazza & Ashwin Malshe’s HBR article published on May 2, 2023 A new study by professors at Rice University and The University of Texas at San Antonio suggest that many company leaders who are super energized and feeling good, having just returned from their exhaustive three-day strategy retreats may be no better aligned than they were before they left. When 500 middle managers and front-line employees were asked how aligned they thought their companies were in terms of strategy,…”

  By Rob Andrews For decades, we have been told that organizations that employ diverse leadership teams perform better than those with homogeneity at the top. But what does diversity mean in 2023? Diversity includes gender and race for sure. It also includes diversity of thought, generation, culture, hardwiring, nationality, political orientation, communication style, strengths, and more. Building a truly diverse and inclusive leadership team is far more complex and more difficult than most people realize. Assuming you could achieve a truly diverse board, leadership team, and workforce overnight, you…”

  By Rob Andrews In the age of heightened awareness of ROI on talent, an often-overlooked metric is executive search placement retention. Global stick rates among executive placements are dismal, and the statistics have been consistent for forty years. Almost one in every two executive hires goes bad within two years. That is roughly 45% failure, at a cost that is incalculable. According to a Chief Executive magazine article titled “What Causes CEO Failure,” “Up to a third of Fortune 500 CEOs have lasted three years with top executive failure…”

  By Rob Andrews with paraphrased content from Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, in Firms of Endearment 2nd Edition In perhaps the most important study of the 21st century, Raj Sisodia reveals that, over fifteen years, 15 companies driven by Conscious Capitalism (CC) outperformed the S&P 500 by 14 times and Good to Great Companies by 6 times. Conscious Capitalism (CC) entails being driven by a higher purpose, practicing balanced stakeholder engagement, and operating with conscious culture and leadership. I fell in love with Conscious Capitalism in 2018, when…”

  By Rob Andrews with italicized content from Gallup’s “How to Create a Strengths-Based Company Culture,” published on November 29, 2022 51% of employees surveyed by Gallup are actively looking for a new job and are spending significant time watching job openings and applying to those that resonate with them. Gallup, in its new guide, lays out a compelling case for building a strengths-based company culture. The approach is a powerful differentiator that will help you attract top talent, bring out the best in every employee, and drive formidable organic…”

By Rob Andrews with paraphrased content from Lou Tice, Late Founder of The Pacific Institute, and Michael O’Brien, Founder of The BluePrint Toolset and Allen Austin Partner Realizing full human potential requires a certain mindset. No one climbs to the top of any profession without suffering trials, tribulations, and setbacks. If we are to achieve our full potential, we will learn how to think, how to control self-talk, and how to program ourselves to live the lives we want, rather than the ones we may be headed toward. For fifty…”