“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
– Peter Drucker
You might have the perfect plan, but without mutual trust, teamwork, and a clear sense of “this is who we are,” your chances of accomplishing it are pretty slim. On this page, look for posts that tell you how to build a positive, resilient team that magnifies the abilities of its individual members.
What is reflection for leaders? Reflection sounds like a passive exercise you do by yourself. It seems to involve sitting in a chair in a darkened room and journaling about the meaning of things. Maybe that’s part of it, but I think for leaders there is much more to it …
6 Powerful Ways Leaders Reflect, and how Reflection Makes Your Team Great Read More »
How come 1+1+1 does not equal 3? You would think that the more people on a project, the greater the output. Sadly, that’s not always the case. A phenomenon called Social Loafing leads some team members to do the minimum possible. They drag down group productivity like a boat anchor. …
Stop Social Loafing: 6 Ways to Get Everyone Working Read More »
What happens to performance if someone is watching? The answer might surprise you. Performance isn’t just about the players, it’s also about the audience. Today we’ll unlock the power of social facilitation and show you how you can use the audience to get the best out of your team.
[Guest Post*] Everyone loves an underdog story, but much of the time, we only perceive the underdogs as such because we are overlooking the strengths that really matter. In the story of David and Goliath, the fact is, much of David’s unexpected win boils down to the fact that …
Creating Unexpected Wins: Leadership Lessons from “Team Short People” Read More »
Of plants, tomatoes seemed the most human… – John Updike If what John Updike says of tomatoes is true, my neighbor is reminding me of an important lesson about working with people.
When you all pull together, it pulls you all together. What happens if you have two groups of people who don’t like working together? How do you get them to function as one? In a strange experiment over 60 years ago that evokes images of Lord of the Flies, a …
Pulling Together: What it Takes to Build Group Cohesion Read More »
Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across. – Sun Tzu, Art of War How do you grow loyalty? Consider this story. A marketing specialist was given her first major assignment to test market a new product. She worked on the project diligently, giving it her best effort. But …
What do you do when your team is falling apart? We all know that in most cases you can accomplish more as a team than as an individual. But what happens when the “teamwork” part erodes away and all you have left is a group of individuals masquerading as a …
I think one thing often overlooked in the world of leadership is patience. We’re always in a hurry to get things done. We have to produce results immediately. Yesterday, if at all possible. To make that happen, some leaders reduce themselves to the idea of “the louder and harsher the …
“If you’re a leader, you don’t push wet spaghetti, you pull it.” – Bill Mauldin Bill Mauldin was a famous cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the newspaper widely read by American GIs during World War II. It’s easy to get his metaphor about leading spaghetti, and it makes sense, sort …
Leading Spaghetti – How to Use Your Noodle to Lead Your Team Read More »
I’m not paying you to agree with me. I’m paying you to think. That’s Colin Powell’s approach to leadership. When it’s time for planning and problem-solving, the best leaders aren’t looking for unity and agreement. They want the opposite. They want dialogue, a clash of ideas. It’s not the time …
Are you waiting for permission to proceed? Traffic signals organize and coordinate the flow of traffic. They keep things safe and orderly. We wait for the green light to proceed. Organizations have managers and supervisors. They direct the traffic too. Most people wait to be told what to do, then …