June 11, 2012
Human beings have organized themselves into teams since squads of cavemen surrounded and killed wooly mammoths. The best teams are passionate about their work – and you can’t forge or force that kind of spirit. It bubbles up from within the hearts, souls and minds of team members. However, as a manager, you can create the emotional conditions from which passion will emerge. These include trust, sharing, camaraderie, commitment, common purpose and confidence.
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May 30, 2012
Mention the word ‘diversity’ in a company and the reactions you get will be, well, diverse: a knowing wink, attesting to the “yeah, we’ve checked THAT box” attitude; a rolling of the eyes and inward groans, indicating a “we do it because quotas are required” environment; a shrug of the shoulders and a heavy sigh, illustrative of HR’s upcoming annual diversity training requirement, but with no real understanding or concern for why it’s required.
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April 28, 2012
The best advice I ever got as a supervisor was from a very wise flight superintendent. He told me that if I would take care of the people, the mission would take care of itself. He mentioned this to me as he observed me in a moment of insanity frantically trying to figure out how to learn every detail of everyone else’s job. It was one of those ‘what were you thinking?’ moments. There were easily 30-40 people in seven different disciplines and I didn’t have a clue what any of them did. I was totally out of my depth.
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January 26, 2012
Workplace teams have been studied to death in recent years, and the verdicts are in. They’re a success—and a disaster. They lead to big productivity improvements—and they peter out ineffectively. People love ’em. People hate ’em.
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June 13, 2011
You don’t have to be Michael Jordan or Mia Hamm to have the skills you need to build and lead high performing teams.
When a sports team is working well together, it can feel like magic. We’ve all experienced it, either as a team member or as a fan. Fortunately, you do not have to be Michael Jordan or Mia Hamm to have the skills you need to build and lead high performing teams in your organization.
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May 27, 2011
In our global economy, teams may often be geographically dispersed. Additionally, by leveraging the power of the Internet and global communications, we now see a lot more ‘teleworking’ and telecommuting by employees. Both of these factors bring a new dynamic to the whole concept of teamwork.
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May 6, 2011
We know that trust is absolutely critical to team and project success. It’s always been hard to build and maintain, but when you don’t work in the same physical location it can feel even more difficult. The good news is that we know the three components of trusting teams. The trick is to make them work remotely
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April 11, 2011
Have you thought recently about how tied we are to technology? You wake up in the morning and reach over to turn off your alarm clock which is playing your favorite tune on your IPOD docked to it. Next your reach over to your nightstand and grab the TV remote and scroll through the numerous cable channels trying to decide which station you want to watch. Your cell phone rings and you grab your Bluetooth wireless headset and head into the bathroom to take care of a few morning “necessities”. As you think about what you are going to wear to work you remember that you wanted to be sure and record Oprah and the NCAA Sweet Sixteen game coming on tonight. So you quickly set your DVR to record both programs as you mentally plan to order a pizza on your iPhone on your way home from work tonight.
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