Michael C. Feiner is President of Michael C. Feiner Consulting, Inc., a firm he
founded in 1996 after retiring from Pepsi-Cola Company. The firm advises CEO's
on how to muscle-build their organizations and upgrade the quality of their
company's leadership.
He is also Professor of Management at Columbia Graduate School of Business
where the course he created, High Performance Leadership, is consistently
ranked by students as one of the school's best courses. He is also winner of
the Best Teacher Award as selected by the graduating class of 2004.
From 1975 to 1995, he worked for Pepsi-Cola Company. In 1989 he was named
Senior Vice President & Chief People Officer for Pepsi's beverage operations
worldwide. Beyond building and leading an organization of 400 human resource
professionals that gained a reputation as one of the most distinctive,
innovative and prestigious in the world, he devoted much of his time to finding
and developing high-potential leaders. At a time when Pepsi's operations
comprised 70,000 employees in 150 countries, he advised, coached and counseled
executives on how to enhance their leadership effectiveness. He is credited
with upgrading Pepsi's performance standards and organizational excellence and
is acknowledged as one of the key architects of Pepsi's distinctive culture,
known for its openness, results orientation and assertive, "David vs. Goliath"
style.
In 1993, he went on to become Chief People Officer for PepsiCo Europe. Based in
London, he was responsible for building the management and organizational
capability of all of PepsiCo's businesses across continental Europe.
Prior to PepsiCo, from 1966 to 1975, he was a successful executive at Trans
World Airlines, becoming one of the youngest vice presidents in TWA history. As
Vice President of Employee Relations & Training, he was responsible for all
management and flight attendant training.
Feiner is internationally recognized for his intellectual integrity,
broad-gauge leadership skills and expertise on people and organizational
issues. He is considered by students in both Columbia's M.B.A. and executive
programs, as well as by audiences at conferences, to be a passionate and
spellbinding speaker.
Michael Feiner holds a B.S. degree from Boston University and an M.B.A. from
Columbia Business School. Mr. Feiner's book, "The Feiner Points of Leadership",
was published by Warner Books in June, 2004. The Toronto Globe and Mail
selected it as the "Best Business Book of 2004".
Values-Based Leadership (90 Minutes):
We've all read in the past few years about ethical lapses at Enron, WorldCom,
Tyco, Parmalat, HealthSouth, Skandia and AIG, to name just a few organizations
where leaders have slid down a slippery slope. One lesson we can take from
these examples is that acting on our values in the workplace requires skill as
well as conviction, insight as well as courage, regardless of what level we are
within the organization. This session challenges you to discover effective ways
of dealing with moral dilemmas in the workplace, and explores questions
including: How do you interact with others when you feel your personal values
are threatened? What personal conflicts arise in situations that deal with
ethical issues? How important is personal strategy and style to dealing with
values-based situations?
Leading and Managing (1/2 day):
Leadership can be a daunting proposition. On the one hand, leaders need to
communicate, motivate and inspire. On the other, leaders must navigate through
the endless activities involving meetings, budgeting, customers, and
operational performance. In this session Mike Feiner discusses these two very
different sets of activities, clarifies the difference between leading and
managing, and offers specifics on how to lead and motivate people to excel.
Secrets of High Performance Leadership (90 minutes):
Mike Feiner explains what accounts for the success of great leaders, using
historical examples that prove dramatic and insightful. Yet he moves beyond the
WHATs of successful leadership and provides pragmatic and hands-on solutions
for HOW to lead and motivate people to achieve great results.
The Laws of Leadership (60 minutes):
There's no mistaking WHAT a great leader does. The real challenge is knowing
HOW it's done. In a hands-on, plain-speaking, pragmatic style, Mike Feiner
offers insightful laws covering everything from managing tough bosses and
difficult subordinates, to leading uncooperative colleagues, to galvanizing
fractious teams.
The Challenge of Leadership (60 minutes):
Getting an organization to operate at peak effectiveness is a huge leadership
challenge. Mike Feiner explains why effective leadership is so difficult, and
offers real hands-on, practical solutions on how to muscle-build a leadership
culture that achieves extraordinary results.
Leading Change (60 minutes):
Leadership is all about producing change, so that an organization is adaptive
to new competitors, new products, new customers, new markets, and new
regulation. Yet impassioned speeches don't get employees to accept change.
Leading change requires attention to lots of details, including those parts of
the organization which are likely to be the most resistant. Mike Feiner
explains how to go about planning and implementing a change effort that
produces the desired results.
What HR is Really All About (60 minutes):
As Chief People Officer at Pepsi-Cola for 15 years, Mike Feiner built an HR
organization that was heralded as one of the most influential, impactful and
respected HR organizations in corporate America. In this session he explains
what accounted for his organization's credibility, and describes what he
believes is HR's overarching role.
