What Drives Us
What motivates you? Chances are that it is not one particular thing but a mix of a wide range of things. Chances are even greater that if you look at the other people on your team, their mix of important motivators are quite different from yours. If we know what motivates us in our environment, we can behave in a manner that feeds these motives and results in a much more rewarding experience. Read more
Planting Seeds
When it’s time to act as a catalyst for change in an organization, the last approach you want to take is the old ‘bull in a china-shop’ method: taking charge, giving orders, ignoring feedback, making demands. While you may end up delivering the proposed changes and maybe even an accurate analysis of what really needs to be done, you will fail in the end. There will be massive overt push back and passive resistance, and you will likely sour the team’s attitude toward change in general. A better approach is to think of yourself as a farmer, and to plant seeds. Read more
No More Mills!
I have found over the years that there are two reasons that people will engage organizations like ours to work with them: to demonstrate to a third-party that they are doing a bang-up job, or to actually improve at what they do. Read more
Learning Via Others
One thing I have noticed in the past few years is that there seems to be an explosion of coaches in the market, similar to the explosion of entrepreneurs and consultants that occurs when the economy sours, and people are driven to tackle a new venture. As with any major influx of resources into a crowded market, you will likely find some good coaches and some that, well, are less than stellar. Find a good one though, as I did recently, and you can learn quite a lot. Read more
All That Jazz
I sat down to lunch recently with a good friend, and we talked about challenges we face in staying motivated, and in keeping the troops motivated as well. On reflection, I think it is a matter of keeping everyone jazzed. Read more
Testing That Team Agreement
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about what can happen when a team agreement is hastily put together: it can actually be worse than no team agreement at all, and can serve to tear a team apart. It is one thing to observe this and note that the team agreement was part of the root cause. What tests can we apply to our team agreement to determine if it is good enough to pass muster to begin with? Read more
Getting In the Groove
These days, we are hammered with more information than ever, and expected to get more done in less time. For most of us, this drives up the pressure to juggle a number of tasks simultaneously, in a frail attempt to meet expectations. We are busier than ever, and there is no end in sight. Read more
