Category: Leadership Development

As you prepare your organization’s at least partial return to the office, I urge you to take the time to reflect on what you’ve learned about the work. Treat the four months since the Covid-19 pandemic sent millions of workers in various occupations to shelter and work at home as an experiment. The slice of the workforce that was able to move their work to home—estimated to be somewhat more than a third of all workers—includes the group known as knowledge workers.

As we reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic, we start to wonder how certain countries and regions are able to manage the pandemic better than others. By better, I mean fewer cases and containing the spread within their countries for a sustained period. Through science, we now know that effective containment of COVID-19 relies on preventive measures of wearing facemasks, washing hands, adherence to strict social distancing, monitoring daily health and avoiding public gathering to contain the spread.

What seemed like a clear-cut research project on the “secret sauce” behind the greatest teams in sports history has evolved into a multi-year endeavor and bestselling book for Sam Walker, a Wall Street Journal columnist and one-time editor. Walker, author of The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership, took the stage as the kickoff keynote for The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence’s seventh-annual Leading Through Excellence summit.

Each year, The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence brings together hundreds of process improvement leaders from across the country for a deep dive into leadership and problem-solving best practices. This April saw the seventh run of the Leading Through Excellence summit, which launched in 2013 and remains the center’s marquee annual event. As preparations begin a busy summer and fall event slate – not to mention the 2020 summit – let’s take a look back at moments from this year’s summit …