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Here are some new resources based on The Next Level along with recommendations on books, web sites and blogs I've been reading lately. Check them out.

Leadership Development Channel Preview

Earlier this year, I was asked to record a series of Quick Talks on The Next Level for the Leadership Development Channel of www.skillsoft.com. Your organization can use these videos, along with talks from thought leaders like Ken Blanchard, Marshall Goldsmith and Pat Lencioni, for the development of your leaders. Learn more at www.skillsoft.com.

Click on the image to view a four minute overview on the key components of executive presence as outlined in The Next Level.

 

Executive Transitions Study

The conventional wisdom is that newly promoted executives should be on track to success within the first 90 days after taking their new assignments. A new study conducted by my colleagues in the Alexcel Group and the Institute for Executive Development shows that the runway for getting up to speed is at least twice as long as the 90 day expectation.

In a survey of more than 150 executives and talent management professionals, we learned that the majority of respondents believe it takes six to nine months for external hires to learn the ropes of their new positions. For internal promotions, the majority of respondents believes it takes somewhere around 180 days for executives to reach full productivity. Unfortunately, the respondents told us that 30% of external hires and 20% of internal hires fail to ever meet expectations.

We asked our respondents to identify the top reasons that newly promoted executives fail. Almost 70% of them cited lack of interpersonal skills such as collaboration and influencing others as the number one reason for new executive failure. On the other end of the spectrum, only 15% cited technical deficiencies as the reason for things not working out.

We also asked what can be done to improve the odds. For a look at the answers and more details on what we learned in the study, click on the link below for a complimentary white paper.

Executive Transitions Study White Paper

 

Next Level Blog

Read and subscribe to The Next Level Blog for quick and current takes on the leadership lessons to be learned from current events and thinking.

Recent Podcasts

Leading News Interview: I recently had a wonderful conversation with Patricia Wheeler, a good colleague and co-editor with Marshall Goldsmith of Leading News. We had about 300 engaged participants on the call. You can listen in by clicking here.

Book Recommendations

	Subtitled 'What a Very Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley, My Start Up Life is the entertaining and jaw dropping story of 20 year old Ben Casnocha, CEO and founder of Comcate.com. Putting aside the fact that Ben is a business prodigy, his book provides some provocative food for thought on the "just do it" aspects of leadership.
	If you're not thinking about how to use wikis, blogs and other tools for massive collaboration, you should be. The authors of Wikinomics make a compelling case for the radical ways in which the work of intellectual content is changing. If you're in your 20's, you know this already. If you're in your 40's or older, you may not. You need to though. Read this book.

 

Movie Recommendations

Recently caught the much acclaimed The Last King of Scotland on DVD. You've probably know about Forest Whittaker's engrossing Oscar winning performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. What you may not have heard about is the great performance of James McAvoy as the young Dr. Nicholas Carrigan. He provides a harrowing look at what can go wrong when leaders lose sight of or never knew in the first place why they're in the game.

 

Music Recommendations

No recommendations for particular artists, but if you're a music fan, check out www.pandora.com. A new friend, Matt Erskine, head sherpa at Richmond-based creative consulting firm, Play, recently turned me onto Pandora. Simply type in a song or an artist you like and Pandora draws on the music genome project to stream music you're guaranteed to groove on.

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