Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
North Americans (OK, maybe just those of us who are Yankees) love simple solutions, especially to complex problems.
We want a pill to cure obesity (instead of a change in diet, lifestyle, better sleep, and appropriate physical activity) and student testing to cure educational ills (in lieu of better teacher training and development, better resourcing, smaller class size, and greater parental involvement).… Read the rest
Woody Allen’s famous line – “80% of success is showing up” – has a correlate from Edward Tufte; “Show up early, something good is bound to happen.”
While showing up early for a cocktail party may not be the best advice, taking both pieces of advice to heart (and into action) from Allen and Tufte about any other business, presentation, or community event/activity gives you a leg up on any number of things.… Read the rest
With a nod to Kelly Clarkson, the first part of a fiscal year for many firms is “off-site” time. Leaders go with their teams to a place off-site with hopes that a change of scenery – and sometimes a round of golf or some collegial dinners – will change dynamics and improve performance.
It probably won’t.
But don’t blame the off-site for the lack of a durable performance bump.… Read the rest
Scott Berkun, whose work I generally like a lot, recently wrote a piece titled Why You Should Be a Team of One. It is a rare miss – a dud, and advice frankly which should be ignored.
Scott has written three books: all are quite good. His most recent, Confessions of a Public Speaker, is particularly good, helpful for someone like me who has 20+ years working with large group facilitation and design when I’m not doing my regular work of coaching execs and team.… Read the rest
Glee, the Fox TV show in its first season that just garnered a Golden Globe for best comedy television series, has something for everybody: jocks, nerds, deceivers, beauty queens, and true believers.
The regular glee, a choir activity in which people both sing and dance – like the TV show – provides a great illustration of what makes good groups click, and bad groups stumble.… Read the rest
Sachin Rekhi’s post PayPals Wars and its Lessons for Today’s Entrepreneurs caught my attention as I surfaced between US professional football (NFL for the locals) league play-offs this weekend. While there is much about the post that is spot-on right – strong vision coupled with short term pragmatic goals, push decision-making down as far as possible, etc. – Sachin makes the case that “It’s all about assembling an A-team.”… Read the rest