CYGNUS Perspectives

Playing It Safe is Risky Business

Taking the 'safe' route when crafting strategy can create unforeseen and undesirable outcomes. While it may seem intuitive to take advantage of emerging opportunities while minimizing risks, it may 'cost' much more to a company's vitality and health. 

Feedback - Easier to Give than Get

To improve and grow, leaders must actively seek out relevant feedback from others as to how they’re 'showing up’ and performing. But far too often, leaders hand out lots of feedback to others while getting little or no feedback themselves. In this episode, Scott highlights six key steps to remedy this situation.  

Executive Presence: Essential but Elusive

Without executive presence, aspiring mid-level leaders will find their route to bigger roles severely limited. Several key qualities define this elusive attribute - but the good news is that they can be developed.

Navigating the Matrix - Who's the Boss?

Navigating situations when you, or your employee, has two (or more) bosses is challenging - to say the least! Whether it's a formal arrangement or something tied to a specific project or activity - there are five key things you can do to ensure success.  

Two Questions for Big Results

As a leader, there are two powerful questions you can consistently ask to improve your team and group events. Discover how these surprisingly simple questions can make a big difference to your team meetings, planning sessions or brainstorming events. 

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

We all know the importance of your work group's effectiveness to overall team performance and company success. But what do you do when high performing individuals on your team create turbulence? Here are five key actions to help smooth the way. 

Watch Out - Your Talents May Undermine You

Using your natural talents comes naturally but the overplay of these same gifts, as a leader, can create unintended consequences. Here are some suggestions to better leverage your natural talents. 

Competence is Overrated - Get Wise

While knowledge and competence are indeed critical to business success, it's wisdom that enables you to advance your agenda much more effectively - with greater impact and success. 

Setting the Table for Strategy Conversations

Too often, strategy conversations fail to realize their full potential. It's not enough to bring your team together for the dialogue - you'll need to 'set the table', in advance, to realize success. This episode reveals six key suggestions to get more out of your strategy refresh efforts. 

The Fantasy of Strengths

While a strengths-based approach to professional growth has real value, leaders can gain big advantages by acknowledging and improving their 'soft spots'. This episode explores how to best leverage feedback that you receive regarding both your strengths and weaknesses.