Why TEAMWORK Matters

You have a passion about something and decided to turn it into a career. You are building, or have already built, a business to bring your good or service to market. 

Or, you're part of a bigger company and are responsible for part of that organization.

Undoubtedly, you want your business or organization to be successful. But, with all of the moving parts to running them, what are the important things to be focusing on? 

While you are diligently creating and executing your business plans, go-to-market strategies, and all the other pieces of the pie, there is one important ingredient that is overlooked, or taken for granted too often:

TEAMWORK

Why does this matter? Because running a successful organization requires an effective team!

The simple truth is that effective TEAMWORK does, among other things,  the following:

- It enhances the sense of accomplishment and promotes camaraderie

- TEAMWORK helps build enthusiasm and creates a more supportive atmosphere

- It creates collaboration in the organization – the sum being greater than the parts

- When employees use their talents together they are better able to overcome roadblocks and accomplish the mission   

- Teamwork encourages interaction across organizational divides – and externally with partners and customers

There are many other benefits of effective TEAMWORK. The point here is, TEAMWORK must be an important ingredient for any successful organization.

So here’s the question... 

Does your organization demonstrate effective TEAMWORK and reap the benefits?

We'd be glad to discuss that with you. The Cobalt Group can facilitate over 150 different workshops for your organization, six of them listed below are entirely focused on teamwork and team building.

• ·        Building High Performance Teams Inside the Company
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• ·        Building High Performance Teams in a Remote Workforce
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• ·        Team Building for Managers
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• ·        Team Building Through Chemistry
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• ·        Teamwork and Team Building
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• ·        Virtual Team Building and Management

For more information about how to achieve better TEAMWORK, or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you with this, or any other business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

Please share this with your friends and colleagues.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s have a discussion. 

Copyright © 2019 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

5 Characteristics of Engaged Employees

Employee engagement is the next level above employee satisfaction. The difference between the two is distinct.

Satisfied employees perform under a more transactional relationship. They are willing to give X amount of work and time because the company gives them Y in return. 

Engaged employees, in contrast, will go beyond a transactional relationship and are willing to give greater levels effort and time. They put more into their jobs because they are passionate about seeing the company and its customers succeed. Employee engagement is a barometer that determines the relationship of a person with the organization.

These are certain characteristics that are traits of more engaged employees. Among them are:

1.      They have a belief in the organization. Engaged employees feel connected to the mission and values of the organization. They want to contribute to its success.

2.      They have an understanding of the ‘bigger picture’. These employees know what is expected of them and they know how what they do fits into the overall strategy of the organization.

3.      They work to make things better. Engaged employees seek out ways to improve the organization and the products or services they sell.

4.      They are respectful and caring to colleagues. These employees appreciate that each has a role and that each bring certain strengths to the solution. They genuinely care for each other.

5.      They are willing to go ‘above and beyond’. Another characteristic of an engaged employee is their willingness to go the extra mile to achieve the goals of the organization. They do so out of commitment to the organization’s goals and values,

At the center of any organization’s engagement model is its leadership. The tone for employee engagement is set from the top to the bottom of the leadership chain. To succeed, it has to be an all hands effort. The organization’s leadership must move the employee beyond the way each feels about his/her job to developing the attitudinal attachment each employee has to his/her company. This is the difference between having satisfied employees to having engaged employees. And it's not that hard.

And remember from a previous blog, the KEY to successfully engaging employees is getting to know each employee – not engaging a “them”.

For more information about engaging and mobilizing employees, and to take our free self-assessment about how well you are engaging and mobilizing, or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you with this or any other business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2018 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

3 Questions You Must Answer to Know if You’re Setting Your Employees Up for Success

If you’ve ever had employees work for you then you’ve likely been in the situation where you have to decide whether or not to let them go for poor job performance. How did you get there? What led that employee to perform poorly? If you’re in a leadership role your job is to set your people up to succeed; to give them what they need to do what you hired them to do.

There are legitimate reasons to fire someone little to no notice. For me that would involve willful or gross negligence, or criminal activity. In those cases the answer is fairly simple – termination is warranted right then. There are other factors, as well, that would rightly lead to ending their employment with you.

But, if you have an employee that is struggling to do what you hired them to do and you are considering letting them go, there are three questions that you must answer before you make that decision:

1.      Did the employee know what was expected of him/her? It seems like a simple question but I have worked with a few clients that had let people go without knowing if the person knew what was expected of them. If your employee doesn’t have a clear understanding of what is expected of them, then how could they know what they were supposed to do?

2.      Was the employee properly trained to perform their duties? There have been many times when I have seen people thrown into a job or a task without adequate, or sometimes any, training to do the job. That seems incredulous in this day and age but it happens more often than you would think. If they haven’t been shown the proper way to do the job, how can you expect them to do it properly?

3.      Does the employee have the right tools to do the job? This is the last question I ask. If they know what is expected of them, and have been properly trained to do the job, were they given the appropriate tools? If the employee’s job is to drive nails into the wall, sending them out with a spoon is of little help. Why weren’t they given a hammer?

Our job as leaders is to set our employees up to succeed. The calculation is simple – our success is dependent upon their success. If you can’t honestly answer ‘YES’ to each of these questions, you have set them up to fail. And in that case, you have failed as a leader, too.

Make sure you can answer each of those questions with a resounding ‘YES’.

For more information about employee engagement, or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you with this or any other business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2018 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

People as a Primary Growth Area

In the course of my week I talk with a lot of businesses at various stages and sizes about where they want to grow. It’s not unusual to hear things like:

• I want to grow into a new market.
• I want to increase my offerings.
• I want to add a new location.

The list goes on, and every one of them are good goals and good growth areas. Most of these business leaders have a good strategy to reach those goals, too. But as I talk with them about those strategies there is one common denominator that I don’t hear them talk about growing – their people!

So I want you to change your approach to business growth and think of your People as a Primary Growth Area! While this is true for all of your people, it is especially true for your leadership team. After all, if you’ve read my blog on the 3 Ds of GoodLeadership, then you know that these are the people to whom you will entrust to one of the Ds – Delegate.

Your people are the most important asset you have in your business. Even if you are self-employed, taking care of yourself will benefit your business.

It’s the people that take your vision and direction and help you achieve your goals. They are the ones that make things happen. You have those people because your business grew enough that you could not do it all yourself.

Don’t overlook your Primary Growth Area. Invest in your people. Make sure they know what to do, and have the tools and training to do it. Sure, better benefits help when they are affordable but what I am saying is to make sure they understand what the mission and vision are, and what their role in it is. Seek their input into your plans and they’ll feel like they have ownership, and with that they will want to succeed even more. And when you’ve achieved results in that Growth Area, you’ll be better positioned to grow your business in other areas, and be able to do so with your people as part of that strategy.

The Cobalt Group can help you with this. Ask us how.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2018 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

Your Value To Your Customer

Most companies have a value proposition. They have some product(s) or service(s) that they believe will benefit their customers. While this value proposition is a great thing to be able to articulate, it isn’t what your real value to your customer is or should be. The customer, on the other hand, wants to believe that they will see value from those products or services. But is that what they really want? My experience is that the value that they see comes more from how you do business with them rather than the actual product or service you’re providing.

The key is to go beyond a value proposition statement and do what you can to help the customer solve their problems. So how do you do that? To begin with, your value begins by getting to know your customer. Get to know them deeply. Know what they do, why they do it, and how they do it. Know what their strategic plan is; learn what their problems are. Many of the problems you can help solve are based in them getting from where they are to achieving their goals. Knowing those goals and why they are important is key here, and will differentiate you from the competition that doesn’t try to understand them.

To do this you have be in there talking with them. Find out what they are trying to do and why. Be an Excellent Listener. Try to get to know their problems before they become a business opportunity. Help shape the way they want the solution to look. For this to happen it will require an investment of your time so that you can understand what they are trying to solve.

The truth is that what customers really want are partners that can help them solve problems. They have plenty of vendors trying to sell them something. So what this really means is that you must move beyond the transactional sale of a product or service and become a business partner and a trusted agent. If you are able to do that then you will increase Your Value To Your Customer.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2015 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Hot Wash

Almost every evolution that occurred in my Navy career was hot washed. That is a military term for reviewing the lessons learned. We debriefed every flight, every exercise, and almost every evolution. We looked at what we did right and what we did wrong. It never made us perfect at what we were doing but when those lessons learned were incorporated into the next event, it made for fewer and fewer mistakes. This especially helped in the planning phases.

Since joining the corporate world I have not seen that done very often. In my first job as a sales rep I went to my boss after the first win to see if she wanted a debrief. She asked me if we won and I said yes. Then she asked what there was to debrief. Being new to the corporate world, I guessed that winning meant not needing to review things. I was used to hot washing everything so I figured it was how things were done. After my first loss I went back with the same thing and the response was about the same with the exception of her asking what I would do differently the next time. That was the extent of the hot wash.

In successive jobs I have had much the same experience. Most of these were not small companies but big multi-billion dollar corporations. Even the company that had a process for what I call a hot wash did not enforce it, nor did it ever really even ask for one. I offered to do one and while they did agree to it, I would have thought that they would have been more interested to know why we lost a $30M+ opportunity. So I put the presentation together and gave it. They were grateful and said all the right things, but nothing really changed.

So why should you do a hot wash? That could be a rhetorical question, but worth addressing nonetheless. All of our lives we should learn from our mistakes. We all make them and nothing is perfect. But, if we don’t take a look at what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong we will set ourselves up to possibly repeating the same mistakes again. And in business, those mistakes make us look bad, at best, and can cost a lot of money, at the worst.

Hot washes shouldn’t be finger pointing exercises either. Establish a formal process to review every bid you make. Look at what you did right. Reinforce those actions. Give praise to those responsible for it. Next, look at what you did wrong. Don’t adopt the zero defect mentality over these errors. Figure out what you need to do to keep from doing it again the next time. No phase of any business venture goes perfectly. Some mistakes may not have had any impact this time, but it doesn’t mean that they may not hurt you the next time.

Take the time to establish a process for reviewing your business successes and losses. Be objective and be honest in your critiques. Leave your egos out of it too. That is the only way to get better. And in the long run, doing a hot wash will pay big dividends.

Happy New Year to you all and our wish is for much success for you in 2015!

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2015 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

If I Become King

We all do this. We sit around with friends and colleagues and complain about the way things are being done where we work, and about the people in charge. And we always have a better way to do it.

Back before the earth cooled I was a young junior officer at my first actual job in the Navy (at the ripe old age of 25) after receiving my wings.  I was the branch officer responsible for the care and feeding of 27 aviation electricians. It wasn’t my first leadership role. I’d already held a couple of those before I entered the Navy. And like a lot of young (and sometimes even old) guys I sat around with my pals and we often complained about how screwed up things were and how we would do things differently if we were the King. So I decided to keep a log of things I liked and disliked about the way things were being done, and what I liked and disliked about the leadership styles of the senior officers with whom I served. Most of the comments were bullet points about this and that, and over time it filled about 15 or so pages. I was determined that If I Become King I would do things differently. I would do things right!

About ten years later, when I was put in my first department head job, I recalled that book and pulled it out. I was no longer a junior officer. So as I read through it I was amazed at some of the things that I had written. I was amazed that some of what I had written was still valid. I was even more amazed that about 75% of what I thought needed changing was due to utter naiveté. Of course, when I was younger I thought I had all the answers. But I now had more life and work experience and, while some of what I felt needed to be changed or incorporated into what I wanted my leadership style to be was still pertinent, a lot of what I thought needed changing was due more to my lack of knowledge and experience than a process or leadership style that was erroneous.

On the surface, it would appear that if about 75% of what I wrote down to change was wrong then it was a failed exercise. I don’t think so. I did learn some things from that exercise that have stuck with me since:

·         It’s easy to complain about something when we don’t have the whole picture.

·         Not everything that we think is being done wrong is actually being done wrong.

·         Many things we don’t like have nothing to do with the efficiency or effectiveness of what’s being done, it’s more about our personal preference.

·         Just because we become leaders doesn’t mean we’re done learning. On the contrary. I’ve learned more about leadership while being a leader than I ever learned in a water cooler conversation or in a leadership training class.

There are times when I wish I had kept a similar journal when I started my corporate career. It would be interesting to see if the results would be the same. I still see things being done that I don’t agree with but now I am more able to discern whether it is an actual problem that needs to be addressed, or just something that I would personally do differently If I Become King.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

How Often Should I Be Coaching My People?

As leaders of any type we should all know that our people are out most important asset. They are the ones that really do the work that makes our businesses successful. And we need to groom and develop them so that they are able to succeed in their job. This can be done by effective coaching and mentoring. We’re not just talking about their job performance, we’re also talking about grooming your next generation of leaders. Bench strength is usually discussed in terms of people with skill sets that you might need for work requirements. There is also a bench strength that the vast majority of companies don’t think about – the leadership bench. In addition to coaching your people on their job performance, you should also be coaching and grooming those that are being looked at to move into leadership roles. And the time to do that is not after they have role (although they’ll need it then too), it should be done before they get it. So how often should you be coaching your people? A lot of it depends on what their role is.

How Often Should I Coach? This can depend on the number of people you have. With all the other demands on your plate it may not be able to be done as frequently as some would suggest. My recommendation is to try to get 30 minutes with them once per week. Although, after some time I have found that most meetings usually drop to 15-20 minutes when things are going well. But keep the time open for each person in case you need it. Coaching is more effective if it is timely so having regularly scheduled meetings allows you to be more effective by providing guidance in a more opportune manner. If you have more than about 8 people directly reporting to you then you may want do something more reasonable by meeting with each of them every two weeks. This can be done in person (which is preferable) or over the phone if the situation does not lend itself to a face-to-face meeting. This should work for most people in most roles.

By coaching I do not mean bringing in the Spanish Inquisition. What they need is an honest assessment of their performance, and for you to ascertain what challenges they are facing that may be inhibiting their ability to do their job more effectively and efficiently. The coaching needs to be two-way and it needs to be reinforced. Refer my post on Excellent Listening. Try to apply that to coaching as well. In addition, coaching needs to be supportive and not something that they dread. You are there to lead them. And you are there to make sure that they have what they need to do the job they are doing for you.

I discovered a long time ago that when the people that worked for me felt like they had a valued role in the success of the organization that they would usually go the extra mile to make that organization successful…willingly. Go take care of your people.

So, how often are you coaching your people?

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Zero Defect Mentality

How many of you work in an environment that is not tolerant of any mistake? It’s the one and done culture. Make an error and you’re gone.The Zero Defect Mentality occurs in places where the leadership, the culture, or the prevailing belief is that mistakes will not be tolerated. This can be in the military or in the corporate world. I have been in them and they are not fun places to work.

No one really wants to fail or make a mistake. But the truth is that we do both. Often. Most of us fear failure. That fear often makes us cautious, hesitant, and indecisive, among other things. Those behaviors can lead to no decision being made, or bad decisions being made in the hope of minimizing the risk of failing and looking bad. And it is not just the failure that people fear, it’s also the consequences of it: getting fired, getting demoted, being humiliated, getting passed over for that promotion, and so on.

I believe the good leader will make sure his/her people understand that no one is perfect and mistakes can and will happen. And when those mistakes do occur they will be addressed but not in a Zero Defect Mentality sort of way. In my Navy career in aviation, the price of a mistake could be fatal. That is way less likely to be the case in the corporate world,. So a good leader will foster an environment that lets people know that making a mistake can be turned into a good learning opportunity and hopefully preventing a repeat of that mistake. Don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between and honest mistake and gross negligence, and the latter should have a bigger consequence.

History is full of people that made what would have been career ending mistakes were they in a Zero Defect Mentality organization but went on to do great things. Take a look at Chester Nimitz. As an ensign he ran a destroyer into a sand bar. I am sure he was the butt of a lot of jokes but he later went on to be the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet in WWII. How might that war have ended if his naval career had been cut short over that mistake?

I leave you with this thought. Failure is always an option. Do all you can to mitigate the risk of failure but don’t make the mistake of NOT addressing the possibility of failure. Even in the things in life where I succeeded I made many mistakes along the way. I am grateful for the leaders that made those mistakes into great lessons learned and didn’t foster the Zero Defect Mentality culture.

Leadership and Being Visionary

One of the traits of a great leader is to be a visionary. Or is it? Throughout the various phases of my career I have often heard that this person or that person is a visionary. Most of the time I would have to agree. But not all of those people were in leadership roles. Some of them would never be in leadership roles. So, do you have to have vision to be a leader? Or, do you have to be a leader to have vision?

The answer to both questions is NO. That may be heresy to some people but here is what my experience has taught me. I have worked with great leaders. Some of them were visionary and were able to get us to make that vision a reality, and some were not. They inspired and led us to great successes. That ties in with what I say is my basic definition of leadership -- the ability to get a group of people to work together to achieve a common goal. But, a person with vision but no leadership ability is not likely to see their vision become a reality without a good leader.

On the other hand, a leader that does not have a vision can be just as effective as one with vision. That leader may recognize or inspire someone else’s vision and make it a reality. As I said above, not all people with vision are in leadership roles, nor are all meant to be leaders. A good leader does not worry about where the vision comes from, he/she only cares how to make it happen. Good ideas come from all quadrants of an organization and a good leader will recognize that and will be able to get everyone to work together to make the vision a reality.

So as I see it, one need not be a visionary to lead. It doesn’t hurt to have that ability but it is not required. And, one need not be a leader to be a visionary. What that means is that good leaders will either be visionary or inspire that in the people they lead.

When to Start Grooming Your Leaders

As a leadership consultant/coach I have often said (and blogged) that leadership begins with the most junior persons in your organization. If they are taught to do their job correctly and are given the tools needed to perform their roles then they can begin to experience what good leadership looks like and gives them something to model. I truly believe that.

Some organizations even take the next step and assign each employee a mentor. This is a good thing for the junior employee. In theory, this gives that junior employee a senior person that can help them navigate the organization, their career path, and allow them to voice concerns and other issues in a friendly environment. In my experience, though, I have rarely seen this work as it was intended. The person that is assigned as the mentor has his/her own issues and they are more often than not too busy, and either intentionally or unintentionally soon forget that they are supposed to be mentoring someone. That junior person often times doesn’t want to feel like pest so they don’t approach their mentor and the great idea fizzles.

The usual next step occurs when a person might receive some sort of coaching is after being moved into a VP or other “C” level role. Those that are fortunate are sometimes provided an executive coach to help them transition into the next level of the leadership food chain. This occurs in organizations that invest in their people and their businesses.

But I submit that there is a better time to invest in your future leaders (aside from when they start). I believe that when a person is moved up into their first supervisory role as a Senior Manager (there’s that word again), Project/Project Manager, or the Director level is the time to invest in them by providing them a coach.

Leadership is leadership, but the type of work a consultant/coach would do for an entry level supervisor/Director would focus, in part, on separate areas of this transition into leadership than it would for a VP or higher. This is their first foray into the leadership arena. This is where it is critical for that person to have guidance as they shift the types of responsibilities they bear. And in this first transition, an investment into the success of the new leader will have a more positive effect on the success of the organization.

So when should we start grooming our leaders? We should be grooming them from their first day on the job. But the time for more investment into them should come when they are moved into their first leadership role, not the one two to three levels up.

Positive Leadership

Leadership is a dynamic environment. There are a lot of moving parts. 

It is a great responsibility for leaders to keep track of all of these parts. 

Not only are they responsible for some aspect (or all) of the business and its growth and success, they are also responsible for the people under them too. 

It’s those people that actually contribute to the success or failure of those business goals.

Too often, leaders (or people in leadership positions) ignore the care and feeding of their employees and partners. The truth is, it’s part of a leader’s job to help their people succeed as much as it is to have the business succeed. 

I believe that it is, perhaps, the most important part of a leader’s job.

So when your people are neglected or, worse, berated, why are some leaders surprised when they fall short of their goals? Why do they seem confused to see a high turnover rate among their people? 

If you’re one of those people in a leadership role and have honestly asked yourself either or both of those questions, you may be using negative leadership. 

Negative leadership, in my view, is when a leader doesn’t take care of his/her people and doesn't instill them with the same desire to succeed as he/she has. 

Instead of finding the good in people they point out the faults and often blame others for their own misgivings. It is not a good environment in which to work or grow.

Positive leadership is the opposite. 

A positive leader gets to know what motivates his/her people. He/she takes interest in their success as well as that of the business. 

They understand that their people are what makes their business succeed. They make their people part of the solution and not just implement it. 

They instill confidence in their people’s view of them as a leader and of the organization, and they instill self-confidence in their people. They give positive feedback more than they do negative feedback. 

They want their people to believe in what they are doing and feel as though they have a stake in it. 

Basically, they engage their people so that they want to come to work.

There is a line here where a leader can overdo it. 

Know your people and know their primary motivators. 

By doing this you will know how to adapt to each of them and their drivers. Then you will know which people require more interaction and which require/desire little to none. 

This is important because most people know when they are being played and they can see right through it. Be sincere!

Also remember, you will not please everyone all of the time. Stop trying. 

But if you are doing your job as a leader correctly, you are trying to find things to praise your people for instead of just pointing out the negative. 

People work better in a supportive environment.

I call that Positive Leadership.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development or employee engagement, or any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Indecision is a Terrible Thing. Or is it? I Can’t Decide.

Following up my post on the 3 Ds of great leadership, I wanted to delve a bit more into the first of the the 3 Ds – Decide.

One of the things I have seen in my corporate career that has baffled and frustrated me far too often is when leadership can’t or won’t make a decision. I know you’ve seen it too. 

I rarely saw this in my Navy career. 

But in the corporate world, that was one of the first things I noticed – leaders afraid to make a decision. So, knowing that I came from a more regimented culture, I asked around to find out why.

I was told many things: 

People’s jobs are on the line. 

Or, politically, that person does not want to make the decision to go in a certain direction. 

They are afraid to disagree with someone. 

They are afraid of the potential dangers of a certain decision. And the list goes on. 

I was astonished. I thought that making a decision was, in part, the job of a leader. 

I can tell you that in the Navy there was never situation like ‘Oh, I don’t know, Admiral, I just don’t know enough about the target area to decide on the best way to attack it’. 

That would have gone over like a submarine with screen doors.

Leaders are supposed to make decisions. That's why they were put in a leadership role.

They make decisions on how to grow their business, what their business strategies are, whom to hire, whom to fire, whom to promote, which companies to partner with, which opportunities to pursue, etc. 

But as I said, far too often I have seen decision paralysis seemingly be the norm, and I’ve seen it at all levels of the food chain. This is one of the areas, as an executive/leadership coach, that I work with my clients about.

If you’re a leader of anything, you have to make decisions. 

Sometimes those decisions may be that there is not enough information to make a final decision. 

Then make the decision to gather the required information and set a time to get back together and factor that new information into a – Decision.

Here’s a simplified way to go about doing this. 

Define the issue that needs a decision. 

List your options. 

Discuss those options and take the inputs from your team. Make them part of the process. 

You probably didn’t get to the position of leadership because you were stupid, so use your intelligence and that of the team that surrounds you. 

Now weigh the possible outcomes. All decisions will have consequences good and/or bad. 

Once you have done all of this, make the decision you feel is best. 

Then go with it.

Not every decision will be right. You will make incorrect decisions and your people will too. 

But as leaders, you have to get away from the Zero Defect mentality that seems so pervasive. 

You know, one mistake and you’re gone! I've seen that happen all too many times. And good people were sacrificed at the altar of perfection.

I’ve learned more from the mistakes I’ve made than the first-try successes. 

Let your people learn from them too. I am not talking about gross or willful negligence, but we can all learn from honest mistakes.

So make a decision and monitor your progress. If the information you have changes, then adjust course where/when necessary.

Don’t let indecision paralyze you or your business. 

There is an axiom that was true in the military and it is just as true in the corporate world….

Lead, follow or get out of the way. But make a decision!

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development, or any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.