Allen Hatton Articles

Your People Skills Will Make The Difference - Click To Read Article
Despite the fact that I am in the business of providing people oriented business solutions, I can’t say that I have always been the best or most motivating and inspiring leader. However, let’s just say I view myself a work in progress and teaching the things I teach brings it all to the forefront for me. You can do the same thing in your organization by learning the people skills and teaching them as you go along. To really learn people skills you must take an interest. To take an interest you need to identify the need and that is usually the problem. The best way to identify a need is to ask others where you need improvement. You can do that in a number of ways with a broad array of assessment tools designed to help you to better see yourself. Please remember that as the boss you (metaphorically) carry a badge as well as a gun.

Winning is not an accident - Click To Read Article
As many of you already know I’m a bit of a sports enthusiast. Baseball & football are the sports I know the most about and I use many analogies, even with my clients who don’t care a lick about sports. After watching my local Baltimore Ravens team get their backsides handed to them by the New England Patriots, I couldn’t help but give credit where credit is due. Therefore, below is an excellent article by management consultant John Baldoni from the WHARTON CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT about the winning formula developed by Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. Unlike baseball, there is a salary cap in the NFL so you can’t buy championships. In the NFL you need solid leadership to win back to back championships as the Patriot’s have done and a third may be on the way.

The essence of the soft stuff - Click To Read Article
If you happen to have caught my interview on Maryland Public Television last week you would have heard Jeff Salkin, the interviewer ask me about the soft skills of leadership. A couple of things we talked about were empathy and listening. The question is how important are they and can they be learned. My answer to that is that they are extremely important to 21st century leadership and yes they can be learned. Last August I wrote about emotional intelligence and leadership and I want to follow up to that with additional information presented by Daniel Goleman, the nation’s leading authority on emotional intelligence.

Reinvent or Die - Click To Read Article
Some of you might know that in the mid 90’s I worked as a turnaround manager and interim CEO for troubled companies. I got to experience the pain of going out of business over and over again. I first saw this with a company that I worked for in the 70’s and 80’s that was in business for 12 years and went belly up.. There is a multitude of reasons why companies fail and for the purpose of this Leadership Gems I want to focus on a big one. Learning .The attitude you have toward learning is critical to your long term success. Hang with me for a moment.

People are Machines - Click To Read Article
A brief look at the history of Modern Management and where we’re headed.

Open Minds and Goal Setting - Click To Read Article
I was taught 25 years ago that a pure scientist has the most open of minds. The reason being quite simple in that unless you’ve conducted an experiment and developed proof one way or the other, how do you know it to be true or not. I was also informed by a scientist that I met on an airplane many moons ago that unless it gets funded it probably won’t be explored. But that’s another story.

JetBlue - Click To Read Article
I just had to write about JetBlue and the leadership of it\'s CEO David Neeleman. When something comes at me from 10 different directions, I get all esoteric and believe I should take a hard look at whatever is coming in. It\'s kind of like the universe is trying to tell me something. For those who did not see the article in last month\'s INC. Magazine or this month\'s Fast Company Magazine or the book that\'s written about him, let alone someone that you know who has experienced Neeleman serving them a snack on one of his flights, I\'ll condense what this guy is all about and the results he\'s having thus far. Since most of this readership is results oriented I\'ll begin with the end. Jetblue is an airline with more than 6,000 employees and 57 twin-engine jets.

Its All About Values - Click To Read Article
Whether you recognize it or not, values are at the heart of what you’re doing and where your business is headed. Think of it as being like gravity. Whether you believe in the concept of gravity or not, it is going to impact everything you do without regard to your belief. We are all driven by our values, so, it only makes sense to figure out what your values are and then see how they match up with those of your employees. Of course finding out what their values are is another story that requires yet another type of effort. For now we will just look at YOUR values and those of your company.

Guts and Passion - Click To Read Article
I like the expression “ Go out on the limb that’s where the fruit is”. However, after reading excerpts of Leadership Wired’s interview with author and leadership expert Kevin Freiberg, I now know that real guts is planting a whole new friggin’ tree-that’s never been planted before. Freiberg’s most recent book is titled “Guts! Companies that Blow the Doors off Business- as- usual”. Below is a taste of something different, something we all can learn from.

Dynamic Indifference - Click To Read Article
There’s a funny leadership story in a book by Eric Yaverbaum titled “Leadership Secrets of The World’s Most Successful CEO’s. From the book – When asked to share his most powerful leadership technique, Bill Bonner founder and president of Agora, a large international publisher, replied “I practice a technique that might be called DYNAMIC INDIFFERENCE. I do not try to lead, probably because I am no good at it. Instead, I merely focus on the work itself. What needs to be done? Who’s got a better idea? Who’s going to do it? No attempt is made to lead. Just the contrary, people are ignored. Finally, they get tired of being ignored and turn to me for leadership. Then I tell them I can’t help them. This forces them to figure out the problem for themselves and resolve it.

Clint Eastwood - Click To Read Article
There was an article recently in “Selling Power Magazine” that featured the quiet management (directing) style of none other than Clint “The Man” Eastwood. For all you busy Execs out there that might not be up on the movie scene, last year Eastwood’s Million Dollar baby won four Oscars including best director and best picture with worldwide gross sales of more than $208 million dollars from an original $30 million dollar budget. He was turned down three times before getting the backing to make the picture. This is nothing new for Eastwood. His directing debut in 1971 saw him gross 10 times the one million dollars it cost to produce “Play Misty for Me” and he completed the film $50,000 dollars under budget. Eastwood takes immense pride in his frugality.


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