“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.
Why turning a “blind eye” is hazardous to the health of your team In 1801, Admiral Horatio Nelson was leading several warships in a desperate fight against the Danish in the Battle of Copenhagen. His ships were part of a larger fleet commanded by another Admiral. Back in those days, …
Leading With a Blind Eye: Why You Can’t Ignore the Thing You Didn’t Want to See Read More »
Did you know that organizations have a life cycle? In this video, we’ll talk about what the stages of that life cycle are, and how you can adjust your leadership approach to successfully lead your team in every stage.
The location, orientation, and strength of a building are determined by its cornerstone. And just as a building needs that firm foundation to be strong, any organization also needs a basis of strength and purpose that orients and guides its actions. These things come from its leaders. These are its …
We’ve all been there, but it’s funny how quickly we can forget the “New Guy” experience. Yet how you bring a new person onto the team will have a lot to do with how long they stay, and how productive they’ll be. Here are four things that the new guy …
Joining the Team: What the New Guy Won’t Tell You Read More »
Like a living organism, teams have a life cycle. As they mature, the members of the team relate to each other differently. These changing behaviors affect the ability of the team to perform. Today we’ll talk about what the stages of team development are, and how you can adapt your leadership …
How to Get Inside their Heads: Understanding the Team Development Model Read More »
In a recent online poll, about 1,000 U.S. workers were asked what their biggest complaints were about their leaders. Today we’ll talk about the top nine of these complaints, how they are connected, and what you can do to avoid being one of the leaders they are complaining about.
Not sure where your team is heading? Wonder what will be waiting for you when you get there? Sounds like you might just be on the Bus to Abilene. Here’s how to recognize if you’re on that Bus and how to get it turned in the right direction.
After every major event, good organizations and teams take a moment and very deliberately review what happened in an After Action Review. In this way, they can keep getting better. It’s a great process, but there’s an elephant in the room that can keep it from working. Today we’re going …
After Action Reviews: Is There an Elephant in the Room? Read More »
Being the leader is a challenge, but it can be even more challenging when you have new people join the team who don’t yet know how to contribute. In the next two minutes I’m going to show you a way to pull the new guys on to the team and …
Give people more money and they will perform better right? Actually, no. Daniel Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, throws cold water in the face of standard management thinking. In fact, he lists seven reasons why the reward/punishment model is a bad idea if you are trying to …
Book Notes: Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Read More »
You are a member of a small group of survivors that has just crash-landed a float plane in remote sub-arctic Canada. You have been able to salvage 15 items from the plane, but you can’t take all of them with you. So as a group, you must rank order the …
Captain Ahab is famous in modern fiction for his maniacal pursuit of the Great White Whale, Moby-Dick. He gets a lot of bad press for his poor leadership style, and things didn’t end up going very well for most of the crew by the end of the book. But there …
Span of Control: The Leadership Secret of Captain Ahab Read More »
