Barry Goldberg

Barry Goldberg

Entelechy Partners
I. Barry Goldberg is managing director of Entelechy Partners, an executive coaching and leadership development firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. His practice focuses on senior executives, change leaders and bet-the-business program teams. Goldberg holds a graduate certificate in leadership coaching from Georgetown University.
  • 0 comments 346 reads
    Posted on 2012-01-23

    It is that time of year again.  The crowds at the gym and walking paths have begun to thin from their Jan 3 crowd levels.  The meetings about new goals and objectives are receding and the day to day work of execution is moving back to center stage.  Airplanes have fewer holiday travelers and more of business travelers as we all go to work on making those visions for the new year realities.  But what of those who are already NOT at the gym?  What about those of us whose good intentions for a new way of living or a new business goal or a major process change are already being reabsorbed into the inertia of how we have always done things?  Often the culprit can be found in the difference between dreams and vision.

    I do not want to hate on dreams here.  Dreams are important.  They provide a brief connection to a hoped for future that is usually very different from our current reality- and our current trajectory.  But dreams are fleeting and as soon as we wake up...

  • 0 comments 419 reads
    Posted on 2011-11-02

    New Yorker Magazine ran this article on coaching in their October 3 issue.  It is surprising for a few reasons, not least of which is that it is written not by a coach but by a surgeon.  Realizing the importance of continuous improvement, he decided to find someone to observe his work and then engage with him about how to get better.  This despite the fact that he was considered at the top of his profession.

    The article is long, tracing through the doctor’s thinking process about engaging a coach. as well as his experience working with the one he chose- not all of it easy or comfortable.  For those considering working with a coach or wondering why anyone would ever want to engage one- this is a great article.  The title under the article’s lead art says it well: “No matter how well trained people are, few can sustain their...

  • 0 comments 754 reads
    Posted on 2011-07-22

    What does the way a leader rewards employees say about the organization?  Rewards are powerful, no matter what behavior we are rewarding- or why!  Have a look at the two video’s this week from major league baseball games.

    First have a look at this kid who managed to get rewarded for sulking, anger and selfishness.  He is just a kid being a kid.  It is not surprising to see this kind of response.  But instead of this being an opportunity to learn about how to deal with unhappiness and disappointment, adults watching from a distance need to rescue him from his own feelings, teaching a very different lesson.

    ...
  • 0 comments 781 reads
    Posted on 2011-07-19

    I found this piece on meetings this morning by John E. McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun.  It is a very funny take on the stereotypical caricatures found around a meeting table.  Sad to say his description is all too true.  And of course we love to denigrate meetings.  Last week there was a piece on having all meetings standing up and in no more than 10 minutes.  The number of gimmicks suggested to fix meetings is endless and in most cases- worthless.

    Want to fix meetings?  Functional meetings happen when functional people gather to do work and are willing to hold themselves and each other accountable.  That is why they are so hard to find.  Clear outcomes and a sold agenda are great tools- but unless the team is willing to agree on rules of engagement that foster open debate and honest disclosure- no real work happens.  Sadly,...

  • 0 comments 871 reads
    Posted on 2011-05-13

    I still hear the term “soft stuff” in reference to organizational effectiveness work.  Naturally I do not think so.  And just as naturally, a large percentage of the business community still feels that they can lead solely based on the balance sheet.  Every once in a while however, we get a very clear lesson in why things like integrity, clear and meaningful values and straight shooting are anything but soft.  Today, there are two in the press.

    Does anyone think that either Facebook or Burson-Marsteller will survive the current brouhaha over an anonymous smear campaign aimed at Google without any impact?  First they undertake what is a project so underhanded that the client remains secret (a violation of professional standards in the PR world). ...

  • 0 comments 774 reads
    Posted on 2011-04-29

    Sliding Down the Razor Blade of Life

    If you're new here, or a refugee from the Entelechy Partners blog, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you prefer email- put your email in to the right and Feeblitz will deliver for you. And, although no one will disavow knowledge of your actions, this message will self destruct after your third visit to the blog. Thanks for visiting!

    New ideas are exciting.  That burst of energy and excitement that comes with a concept that will (or even might) be a game changer is intoxicating.  And in cultures that are often very action oriented, change leaders want to get moving quickly.  I have written here before about the cost of jumping to action without fully understanding...

  • 0 comments 510 reads
    Posted on 2011-03-17

    One of the fundamental leadership tools I employ (The Leadership Circle Profile-360) contrasts the time, energy and focus of attention an executive devotes to creating a new future with reacting to current reality.  After all, a leader must be leading somewhere and that means investing resources and attention in that vision.

    But it is also clear that the ability to react with swift sure action is critical when the situation calls for it.  If you are the SVP Tech Ops for a bank and your servers are down at 8PM- that is the time for a full court press to get back in operation and be able to process transactions.  The government response to the recent disaster in Japan is an example of what happens when leadership Is hamstrung in too much consensus.

    This article in the New York Times describes the...

  • 0 comments 834 reads
    Posted on 2011-03-11

    One of the questions that often comes up in leadership development is whether leaders are born or made?  Is all the effort to develop leaders worthwhile?  Sometimes I feel like Woody Allen’s character in Stardust Memories- interrogating super intelligent beings who tell him “You are asking the wrong questions.

    For a radically different approach to understanding the various paths to leadership, get your hands on a copy of Kevin Sheehan’s A Leader Becomes a leader2Leader (True Gifts Publishing, 2007).  Do not look for a formulaic step-by-step guide here.  This s a collection of stories.  Sheehan retells the experience of leaders, drawing on a wide range of examples.  Some are...

  • 0 comments 1,094 reads
    Posted on 2011-03-04

    I generally stay away from “postmortem” work, but a client recently asked me to look into what was behind the failure of a sizable process change they had attempted.  I talked with sponsors, end users, members of the project team and heard all the usual stuff.  But it was in an all but accidental conversation in the cubicle of the senior programmer who had worked on the code that the bottom line became clear.

    He had the cartoon you see here (from XKCD) printed and framed by his desk.  “We had to either sprint our way through what was a sloppy job or find that anything we built well was obsolete.  It was very frustrating and several of my best programmers have since quit.”

    We followed the question back the business analysts to find out why requirements were so volatile.  The lead analyst (who has also accepted work...

  • 0 comments 889 reads
    Posted on 2011-02-25

    In years of leading executive discussion groups and off-sites I have come to expect that most attempts to define leadership end up with(or at least pass through) a nod to Justice Potter Stewart, who is known for the concept of “I do not know how to define it- but I know it when I see it.”  (A true reading of Justice Stewart’s remarks and intent can be viewed here.)  That same inability to point to a specific definition allows for some very creative uses of the word leadership.  Sadly, it has become the “That’s not fair” of modern politics.  Think I am wrong on this?  Google search turned up 103 million references for “show some leadership”.

    As young as 3 or 4, my son knew that when kids say “That’s not fair” it usually really meant “I am not getting what I want.”  Children learn early that a direct statement of what they want is easy to dismiss or ignore.  But, in our desire to teach fairness and...