Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
From the headline of Tom Abate’s story in the San Francisco Chronicle “Roche-Genentech deal called close, with offer raised”, folks at 1 DNA Way in South San Francisco should take a look across the bay at Chiron’s former campus in Emeryville to see their likely future.
As noted elsewhere (see the “Land O’Spin series on best practices of assessment on this blog), one of the best predictors for future behavior is to look at past patterns of behavior.… Read the rest
Land O’Spin is an occasional set of writings focused on best practices in coaching and assessment: how do take what you observe, know what it means, and draw conclusions about what outcomes will occur in the future.
The news came in different ways about different people but the intersection was all mine: addition by subtraction was at play.
The sports news channels were filled with the predictable dispatches about Terrell Owens ‘ release from yet another National Football League team – this time the Dallas Cowboys.… Read the rest
I am no speechwriter nor am I a speech analyst: I stick to my knitting coaching teams and execs. But a “lite” version of an exercise I utilize I call “Road Trip” was one of the things my son learned at school Tuesday, January 20th as he and all the other kids from the lower grades watched the inaugural speech of a new President of the United States .… Read the rest
Some people easily communicate emotions. I am not naturally one of them; a close friend told me that they knew when I got enthused about something when they saw one of my eyebrows move. It is the mischief of karma that I am blessed with a son who has a great range of feelings: joy has great heights, and compassion has strong expression, as well as sadness.… Read the rest
My dad, who passed away at age 96, referred to life in his later years as “Mike raising father.” From the land of what goes around comes around, my son Traylor seems to be inspiring the same type of learnings for this pop.
After lunchroom / playground duty with fellow volunteer parents Erica and Billy at the new school , I got to see a couple of my son’s classmates apply simple pragmatism to recess.… Read the rest
Yale professor and statistician Ed Tufte has crisply detailed the unfortunate trail of missed information that led to the death of astronauts and the failure of the Challenger spacecraft mission. In brief the issue was not that NASA lacked the relevant information to make a correct decision: they had the information – they just didn’t understand it.
My coaching work with start-up and leadership teams shares a similarity with Tufte’s work with the Challenger episode: how do you surface the most important information and act on it?… Read the rest