Early in my teaching career, a guidance counselor gave me brilliant advice when exploring the reasons why someone made a decision. It was counter-intuitive: Resist asking “why“. He explained the reasoning by asking me to think about what “why” opens up – the prepared answer, the agenda, the (by definition) inner thoughts and motives that … Read more
Last week, I shared some ideas from one of the speakers at the Des Moines Business Record’s “90 Ideas in 90 Minutes”. This week, I’ll do the same with Bob Riley, the CEO of Riley Resource Group, which is an interesting organization in its own right. Here are some of my favorites: Hire disruptors with … Read more
Non-profits often have the challenge we explored last week: constraints. Constraints include lower budgets, impact of economic downturns on funding and volunteer efforts, and cycles driven by major programs. For these reasons, they come up with creative ways to maintain success and engagement. Even if you don’t lead in a non-profit, many of their ideas … Read more
When I was a band teacher, we experienced a staff cut. In 10 years, the department went from 7 teachers serving about 500 students to 5 teachers serving 600. The superintended gave us that left-handed compliment that’s supposed to reassure us while also keeping us quiet: “If anyone could do this, you can. We believe … Read more
Micromanagement gets a bad name. Deservedly so – you will alienate your best people if you tell them how to size the columns and what font to use for the Tracking Performance Spreadsheet reports, and really make them feel like children when you stand over them to dictate the angle of the staple when they attach … Read more
Leaders and experts speak highly of the ability to adapt; people who can adapt to changing situations have a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, and can stay nimble in volatile times of change or uncertainty. Sometimes, though, the only time we can develop those skills are in actual crisis situations. Adversity helps us … Read more
I heard a great question from Des Moines business leader Nora Everett of Principal: “How would you put yourself out of business?” Whether you apply it to your entire business, or your team, you can come up with some great improvement ideas from exploring this question. I applied it to my own business and came up with … Read more
A common buzzword now is “disruption”. The idea that if we are to grow, we have to innovate, and the pace of change is so fast that innovation cannot be incremental. We need people who will “disrupt”. Diversity is a competitive advantage. We know this, too. If everyone on our team were the same, many … Read more
“How do you manage up?” This is a very common question. Others may disagree, but I give this short answer: You don’t. You manage yourself and your team so well that your manager rarely questions anything you do. If your manager is unreasonable, then there’s not much you can do anyway, unless there is a … Read more
In earlier posts, we’ve looked at the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and we’ve looked at DiSC. Please look back for a refresher if you need one. Most teams struggle with the “Trust” and “Conflict” behaviors, and this series of short posts examines the ways each DiSC style can influence those areas. The Conscientiousness style can … Read more