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
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
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 Steadiness style can … 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 Influence style can … 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 Dominance style … Read more
Originally, this blog was going to be about goal-setting. I spent some real time on it. Then, when Ashleigh went to proofread, revise, and schedule it, her reaction was to send me this email: This post is very, very similar to “Leaders Write Effective Goals and Help Others” posted last July, except there you suggested a different starting … 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
Change is inevitable, and so there are many resources to help organizations deal with change. The John Kotter works (Our Iceberg is Melting) are very popular, and for good reason. You’ve heard of Who Moved my Cheese? as well, certainly. Change management resources like these can help leaders navigate and push change successfully, but something … Read more
A colleague recently shared a success story with me. She said, “We’ve finally addressed the problem we had with people being ‘violently polite’. Once we put this label on the passive-aggressive talk, and the avoidance of speaking up, we started to get more engagement.” How cool! I immediately fell in love with this term. Asking people … Read more