Leaders know that encouragement is important, but it tends to be too rare and fall into just one or two categories: I believe you can do it. (Spurring someone on to meet their potential when they’re discouraged or not measuring up.) You are exceeding expectations. (Praising someone who has gone above and beyond, exceeded standards, … Read more
I’ve written a lot on this blog about being others-focused instead of being self-focused. If I asked, I’m sure you could come up with a list of outward behaviors for each of the two categories. On the self-focused list would probably be words like tardiness, frowning, complaining, ignoring others’ needs, and declining to help. Words … Read more
When Mary Coffin of Wells Fargo spoke at September’s 90 Ideas event, she shared this nugget: Measure more than the average. She pointed out that when we take measurements, we do a lot of looking at trends and averages and norms to make decisions. But averages only tell us so much. We also need to … Read more
At the Business Record’s “90 Ideas in 90 Minutes” event from September 2017, Miriam De Dios of Coopera made a case for organizations of any size to implement “Personal Development Plans for All.” Most organizations do some kind of development plan for people in, or preparing for, leadership roles. But what if everyone had a plan? People on … Read more
There are times in conversations or meetings when you really want to move on, but you don’t want to shut people down. So, you use a generic question that unintentionally telegraphs a lack of openness, rather than a desire to check-in. For example: “Does that make sense?” “Any questions?” “Does everybody get that?” Unfortunately, there’s no … 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
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
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 previous posts about the Four Levels of Maturity, we’ve explored the notion that Level 2 (Independent) is the most dangerous. At Level 2, people are generally: correct justified able to blame problems on others technically in compliance with standards and rules This is a dangerous place for a team member to be, because they’re … Read more