Mike Myatt Archives - N2Growth

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

Leadership & President’s Day

Since we’re headed into President’s Day weekend, I thought I’d re-post a piece that examines the leadership characteristics of the two Presidents for which the holiday is celebrated; George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. It's an astute person who studies history and then applies the lessons learned to their present-day life. In the text that follows I’ll look at the unimpeachable character of…

Leadership, Timing and Opportunity

What's more important - skill, luck, or timing? The message I want to deliver is this; opportunity and timing are inexorably linked. So much so, that if you don't think that timing is everything - think again. Even a cursory review of current events shows it doesn't really matter whether you're a politician, investment banker, CEO, or just an average citizen - when it comes to making a simple…

Attitude Reflects Leadership

My question for you today is a simple one: ”How’s Your Attitude?” Show me a CEO with a bad attitude and I’ll show you a poor leader- attitude reflects leadership and your overall impact. While this sounds simple enough at face value, I have consistently found one of the most often overlooked leadership attributes is having a consistently positive attitude. As an executive, how can you expect to…

The Disconnected Leader

Even though few would dispute the value of being an engaged leader, many still do not practice what they preach. The harsh reality is great numbers of leaders continue to operate in a vacuum by sequestering themselves away in the corner office and attempting to lead from afar. Trust me when I tell you that being out of touch is never a good position to find yourself in as the CEO. I rarely come…

Leadership Is About Leading

Leadership is about leading. Leadership is a 24-7-365 endeavor. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the best leaders view what they do as a calling and not just a job. If you're a leader, what you do in public or private, in silence or in word, and in thought or indeed will be observed, evaluated, and critiqued - count on it. There are simply no free passes for leaders. Don't believe me? Just look…

Leadership And Making Choices

Choice; it’s a simple, yet critical aspect of leadership. Academics and business theorists often gloss over the basics of leadership preferring to trivialize their importance. It’s far too easy for those with an elitist approach to leadership to dismiss simply as sophomoric, and obvious as irrelevant - nothing could be further from reality. Leadership has little to do with complex theory, but…

Leadership and White Space

In my most recent column on Forbes I briefly discussed the value of white space as it relates to "span of control" but felt the topic deserved a deeper dive. Here's something you might not want to hear, but you should definitely take to heart - If you're having difficulty ordering your world, it's nobody's fault but yours. I don't care how busy you are, but I do care about what you accomplish -…

No Excuses = Real Leadership

Leaders don’t offer, nor do they accept excuses. Real leadership demands the character to demonstrate personal responsibility for one’s actions, and the courage to hold others accountable for theirs. Excuses attempt to conceal personal or professional insecurities, laziness, and/or lack of ability. They accomplish nothing but to distract, dilute, and deceive. It was Benjamin Franklin who said,…

Big Data – Not All Metrics Are Created Equal

When it works, Big Data can be a beautiful thing - what organization wouldn't want more actionable information with which to feed better data driven decisions in the quest for a competitive advantage? But in the race to acquire Big Data, leaders can easily wander off course with devastating results. According to EMC (disclosure: client), only about 1/3 of companies are able to effectively use Big…

Leadership, Influence & Relationships

Have you ever wondered why some people have more influence than others? It's because they invest more "in" others. Those with leadership influence have built into others through some form of a consistent direct or indirect contribution to relationships. Those with the greatest amount of influence almost always have the strongest relationships. My hypothesis is a rather simple one: If true…

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