People who explore implications show patience in evaluating ideas to determine potential benefits and drawbacks. I stayed in a brand-new hotel recently, and noticed something odd; the bathroom door was spring loaded to swing shut. Furthermore, when I checked in, the bathroom light and fan were on and running. This meant that when I entered … 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
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
Patrick Lencioni has done it again. His latest book, The Ideal Team Player, is brief and brilliant. In this fable, followed by a model outline, Lencioni shares a hiring secret of his own company, The Table Group, and shows us that we can apply this to any team. They look for three virtues that they’ve … Read more
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, the need for vulnerability-based trust is considered foundational for any team to be successful. When this trust is developed, we can have healthy conflict. Once healthy conflict occurs, even when there’s disagreement, team members are more likely to show commitment to group decisions. Then, because … Read more
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, the need for vulnerability-based trust is considered foundational for any team to be successful. When this trust is developed, we can have healthy conflict. Once healthy conflict occurs, even when there’s disagreement, team members are more likely to show commitment to group decisions. Then, because … Read more
Are individual team members slow to execute tasks which they may not be in agreement with? Does the team lack passion for their goals? If so, there may be an issue with commitment. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, the need for vulnerability-based trust is considered foundational for any team to … Read more