Active listening is a key skill. But while it's important to be able to listen well to teams in a period of transformation, it's even more important to be able to turn what you're observing into action.

This week on Navigating Change, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright conclude their three-part discussion on a robust decision-making process and the importance of uncovering the "why" of every change initiative. In this episode, we talk about how best practice organizations turn outcomes of change initiatives into action.

In this episode, we cover brainstorming and the critical importance of strong leadership in the process.

In this episode, we cover the foundational elements and visioning structure that helps teams understand the foundation of their change story, and how to connect with it as a team at new levels of depth.

Loyalty is a tricky subject made only more complicated when it comes to change initiatives. This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright take on loyalty — to a person, to an institution, or to a cause — and discuss how an evolving sense of loyalty impacts teams.

Following up on our conversation around reflections on NACUBO 2013, we're digging into issues facing the finance organization on today's show. While we hit on the three key points around relationship building, communication, and what it means to be a leader, the real secret lies somewhere in keeping touch on the role of the individual as a seed for change.

We're back from the NACUBO 2013 Annual Meeting — and what a terrific week it was! Howard Teibel is back with a review of key learnings and an assessment of the evolving direction of the organization. Did NACUBO make good on their renewed focus on Innovation in Higher Education? Listen in this week for our take!

At this year's NACUBO Annual Workshop, Howard Teibel will join NCAA business officers for a rich discussion on the nature of leadership, communication, and broadening the contribution to the strategic planning process.

This November, I'll be heading to Chicago for the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) 2012 Strategic Leadership Conference. In brief, this is a conference dedicated to the people charged with moving our schools forward in times of great challenge and increasing complexity, with integrity and fiscal stability. I love this topic, so I thought it might help to share some of the background to these topics with you in advance, to give you some insight into the kind of work I've been doing that has brought me to this place, and to the structure I'll be sharing with you.

Howard Teibel offers a framework for positive change, offering the techniques your organization can implement to turn natural confusion into a positive learning and growth opportunity.

This week on the show, we bring you part four of our conversation with John Eldert, Vice President of Administration at Berklee College of Music as he joins Howard Teibel to discuss their work on adapting the business approach to strategic planning for higher education.

This week on the show, we bring you part three of our conversation with John Eldert, Vice President of Administration at Berklee College of Music as he joins Howard Teibel to discuss their work on adapting the business approach to strategic planning for higher education.

This week on the show, we bring you part two of our conversation with John Eldert, Vice President of Administration at Berklee College of Music as he joins Howard Teibel to discuss their work on adapting the business approach to strategic planning for higher education.

Academic planning often adopts the business approach to strategic planning. The results are predictable: clear, measurable outcomes; tight, pithy vision statement; focused strategy targeting a clear and "directable" organizational culture. But these assumptions don't fit the higher education planning environment, with many parallel lines of activity, complex vision, and an environment that is often far more self-directed. This week on the show, we bring you part one of our conversation with John Eldert, Vice President of Administration at Berklee College of Music as he joins Howard Teibel to discuss their work on adapting the business approach to strategic planning for higher education.

We underestimate what it means to collaborate. The result is often a catalog of missed opportunities for improving function across the organization, which comes at the expense of systems training and technology solutions for simple problems. This week, Howard Teibel joins Pete Wright with a few suggestions for team cross-training -- ensuring that teams are aligned across departments and functions, and that process, not just systems, are tested all along the line.

We’ve all been there -- the eternal ineffective meeting. The facilitator labors on and on, agenda lost long, long ago, with no end in sight. But it is possible to hold effective meetings; meetings with focus, attention, participation, and accountability -- and it all starts with a collective understanding of the rules of the field. In this episode, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright outline those rules and provide suggestions for all who are plagued with ineffective meeting-itis on how to spark the right team behaviors and get back on track.

It’s easy to say you want to cultivate an environment of collaboration and communication on a team. It’s another thing all together to actually achieve it. When you are faced with team behavior that’s in the dumps, how do you pull the right people together, inspire that spirit of innovation, and get people working together again without getting mired in politics and frustration?

Walk into your next management meeting and tell your team that you think they need to learn to sell better, you're likely to feel a chill enter the room. Sales has a tough reputation inside organizations. And yet, so many core skills from the art of selling apply perfectly to the interactions we engage in day to day.

Holding a strong retreat takes planning and strategy to rally teams and build commitment. The best retreats offer a chance to capture institutional intelligence and align teams to strategic vision. The worst retreats are chaotic and unaligned, and can leave your team jaded and disorganized as a result.

Implementing a Balanced Scorecard approach to quality and performance management can be tricky. Most teams are naturally cynical when it comes to new tools that measure their performance on the job. Clarity of mission and results across the organization can go a long way to soothing fears and inspiring confidence.