Demotivation: 7 Ways You Might Be Killing Your Team’s Spirit
Could your efforts to lead actually lead to demotivation? A team’s spirit means everything when it comes to productivity, engagement, and satisfaction. But sometimes, despite our best intentions, the way we lead can become a source of demotivation. Here are seven things you might be doing that deplete your team’s morale, and what you can […]
Leading Volunteers: How to Keep Them Coming Back
How do you lead people who aren’t on your payroll? Since moving to Minnesota, I’ve wanted to get engaged locally as a volunteer. Last month I signed up to help at a local agency, and it was a great experience. The way they worked with the volunteers made it fun, productive and has had me […]
Leading Virtual Teams: 12 Powerful Ways to Lead a Team You Can’t See
How do you lead a team that’s not there? It’s hard enough to be a good leader when your teammates are in the same room. But what about when they aren’t even in the same time zone? When you can’t look someone directly in the eye, things get much more challenging. Yet leading virtual teams […]
6 Powerful Ways Leaders Reflect, and how Reflection Makes Your Team Great
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 than that. Leaders reflect actively, […]
Stop Social Loafing: 6 Ways to Get Everyone Working
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. Today we’ll look at why […]
Secrets of Social Facilitation: Putting the Audience to Work
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.
Creating Unexpected Wins: Leadership Lessons from “Team Short People”
[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 his sling was more powerful […]
The Secret to Growing Good Tomatoes (and People)
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.
Pulling Together: What it Takes to Build Group Cohesion
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 researcher discovered one very effective […]
Building Bridges: How Leaders Grow Loyalty
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 when the results came in, […]
Book Notes – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
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 team? How do you diagnose […]
Leadership Incubator
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 better.” Kind of in the […]