View original article at www.eckfeldt.com. Many executives go on vacation, but too many just bring their work with them. If you want to truly refresh, use these tips to leave the work at home. As a business and executive coach, I work with company leaders on setting strategic focus and clarifying accountability for results. And while I love working with highly driven people, too often these folks are burned out and running on empty gas tanks.

View original article at www.eckfeldt.com. Presentations are a fixture in most businesses, but they often drag on. Here’s a simple technique to develop better presentation skills and timing. For most companies, presentations are a regular part of meetings. Unfortunately most presentations are poorly designed and even more poorly delivered. …

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. Leadership is critical, yet most companies fail to invest in their people. Here are six ways to develop talent that won’t break the bank. Leadership is critical to a company’s success. This is twice as true for high-growth businesses. Without enough leaders, scaling a business is next to impossible. …

View original article at www.eckfeldt.com. Measuring effectiveness is an important aspect of growth. Here are 6 key definitions that will help your team get on the same page. There are many terms around measuring the effectiveness of management and execution that can be confusing. Without a clear, shared definition, leaders can often get stuck in muddy discussions that result in misalignment. …

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. I’ve been coaching a young, freshly-minted executive who has been selected for a high-potential development program. Recently, we’ve been exploring what it truly means to be a leader. She said to me that she believed that being a leader means always knowing what to do and to “never be in doubt”. Having been a CEO myself and having worked with many…

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. As an executive and team coach, I spend a lot of time helping people develop solutions to problems. What to do with a problem employee? How to develop the right strategy? When to start a new initiative? The core of the coaching process is developing plans and execution strategies and then guiding people to take action and implement. However, I’ve found that often times, the most value I add is not in helping find the answer, but helping find the right question.

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. As leaders, we are faced with tough decisions that impact many people. And let’s face it, not everyone is going to be happy with each one of those decisions. In fact, if we’re not stepping on a few toes, we’re probably playing it too safe. Good leaders know how to act decisively, but they also know how to recognize when their actions hurt others, and they actively work to repair damaged relationships. …

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. I played squash last week with a fellow McGill alumnus. I got my ass kicked since it’s been ten years since I’ve picked up a squash racket and he plays three times a week. Despite that, I’m glad we played. We had a good conversation about the merit of performance reviews and whether or not, in the end, they are really worth it. His position was that they are a waste of time. He’s held several CEO positions and every time he’s seen them implemented, they’ve taken a significant amount of organizational effort and have resulted in limited, if any, meaningful changes in performance. His general conclusion is…

View original article on www.eckfeldt.com. When starting a team coaching assignment, I start with the question, “when this engagement is completed, how will you know we have been successful?” This helps create focus and set direction for the engagement. Early this year, while working with a marketing team, one, somewhat frustrated, woman gave me the answer “if we actually stood up at stand-ups!” “Really? That’s all?”, I asked. That was something I was fairly sure I could do. (Just take away the chairs was…