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Welcome to the N2Growth blog, a robust knowledge center of articles curated by our team of thought leaders. Our practice areas encompass a full range of knowledge and information that we regularly share with you to enable success and create positive impact in organizations. We invite you to comment, share, and be a part of the growing community of some of the most influential Executive Leaders in the world.
Leadership Lesson: The Difference Between Google and Apple
Google and Apple are both highly esteemed brands. Both companies share many common traits that have contributed to their success, but there is one very big difference between the two – Google plays offense while Apple has recently settled for playing defense. Apple is struggling to maintain its position in the market, while Google is expanding its position. There is a leadership lesson here...…
How To Predict The Future
Life is just plain easier when you can see what's ahead of you. Some leaders clearly have poor vision - their most polished skill seems to be running into brick walls. Other leaders simply possess adequate vision - they avoid the obvious speed bumps, but fail to stand out from the crowd. Then there are those leaders who possess legendary vision - the rare few who can see around corners. What you…
How To Be In Over Your Head Without Drowning
Do you ever find yourself in over your head? If not, I would suggest you don’t spend enough time in the water. The truth is all leaders find themselves swimming in rough conditions from time-to-time. The difference between those who drown and those who become stronger swimmers is little more than a combination of attitude and preparation. It was T.S. Eliot who said, “If you aren’t in over your…
6 Ways To Conquer Leadership Pressure
How a leader deals with pressure will tell you much about who they are as a person. Their reaction to pressure will reveal the strength of their character and conviction, what and whom they value, and whether or not they can be trusted. The reality is most people buckle under pressure. Only a few handle pressure well, and even fewer possess the qualities to be able to thrive on pressure. There’s…
Leadership and Simplicity
One of the most effective ways to order your world is to simplify everything you encounter. However, the problem for many is keeping it simple often becomes very difficult when our basic human nature is to over-complicate everything we touch. In thinking about the people I respect the most, to the one, they possess the uncanny ability to take the most complicated of issues and simplify them. You…
The Most Common Leadership Model – And Why It’s Broken
When organizations hire, develop, and promote leaders using a competency-based model, they’re unwittingly incubating failure. Nothing fractures corporate culture faster, and eviscerates talent development efforts more rapidly, than rewarding the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Don’t reward technical competency – reward aggregate contribution. Any organization that overweights the importance…
It’s Not Impossible – It Just Hasn’t Been Done Yet
How many times in your career have you witnessed someone say, “that’s impossible – it simply can’t be done.” Perhaps you’ve even been guilty of uttering such a phrase yourself. Here’s the thing – leaders don’t accept impossibility as a valid thesis. If you think I’ve lost my mind, or that my optimistic nature has crossed over into a state of irrational exuberance or delusion, I’d encourage you to…
Why Your Organization Suffers From Leadership Dysfunction
Have you ever wondered why organizations tolerate dysfunctional leaders? The answer is dysfunction is so prevalent it’s often not even recognized as problematic. Many corporations just desire leaders to go along and get along more than they desire them to lead. It saddens me to articulate this next thought – corporate leadership is rapidly becoming an oxymoron. Think of those you know in a…
Flattery and Manipulation
All leaders have blind spots, and blind spots simply pose potential areas of vulnerability. However, not all blind spots are created equal. Few things create areas of risk for leaders like their own sense of pride and ego. Here's the thing - a leader's desire to have their ego stroked makes them vulnerable to a very seductive form of manipulation - flattery. The most common form of manipulation…
Clarity Matters & the Facts Ma’am, Just the Facts
Clarity Matters. While clarity and brevity may have become a lost art, understanding the importance of clear, lucid, and straight-forward communication is nonetheless critical to your success as a leader. In today’s column I'll reveal (clearly and briefly) the tricks of those who practice what I call “the black art of confusion” propagated by the ruse of ambiguity. Have you ever finished…
10 Things Every Leader Should Challenge
Innovation, growth and development cannot occur by pretending we live in a world that has long since passed us by. Leading in the 21st Century affords no safe haven for 20th Century thinkers. Old, static, institutionalized thinking will gate the pace of forward progress faster than just about anything. If you want to expose yourself as an out of touch, dated leader, keep trying to address today's…
The Next Generation of CEOs: 10 CEO Ready Leaders
Lots of executives aspire to become a CEO, but few actually possess the leadership chops to pull it off. As someone who earns their living as a leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, I always keep a sharp eye peeled for up and coming leaders. The 10 leaders profiled below represent different industries, different disciplines, and even a few different countries, but they all share one thing in…
100% Of Companies Have This Problem
Process... just the mere use of the word can spread fear and panic in the workplace. This sad reality exists for a reason and 100% of companies unnecessarily suffer from a process problem. They suffer to varying degrees, but they are nonetheless suffering. The good news is bad process is one of the easiest things for leaders to remedy. By simply being willing to stop the madness and reclaim the…
The Case For Ubiquitous Leadership
Do you work in an environment that fosters leadership at every level, or just at the top of the org chart? You can either chasten people for attempting to lead, or encourage them to take risks, to explore opportunities, and to make decisions. If you want to create a culture of leadership, you must succeed in creating leadership ubiquity. I’ve written often on the value of creating a culture of…
Leading In An Avalanche
The point I want you to take away from the video below and the text that follows is an avalanche need not always end in disaster. Pushing the envelope is something all leaders must get comfortable with. It's when leaders push themselves and those they lead past comfort zones that great things happen. Sometimes leaders need to cause an avalanche, and sometimes they'll need to react to one caused…
The Secret To Making Better Hires
Why do so many companies struggle when it comes to making great hires? They overlook the obvious. In other words, the people doing the hiring fail to understand, look for, and qualify the one characteristic that indicates the certainty of a good hire. While companies screen for many things, they often miss the gold standard litmus test – they play a game of chance when it’s simply not necessary.…