“No, no, no! No one is going to read this. It’s too long!” That’s my internal voice when I open most communications. Tiny scroll bars are my arch-nemesis – a sign that someone has not done a good job of editing. Any class on the brain will teach you that there...
Don’t Blame the Culture, Blame Your Leadership
I work with many organizations that struggle with bad behavior and toxic elements in their workforce. Why don’t people just fall in line? Why don’t they think before acting?It’s common to question whether the culture – the way we do things around here – is failing the organization. But it’s...
Welcome to the Best Team of Your Life!!
What would happen if, when your spouse arrived home from work (or emerged from the home office), the entire family shouted, “Welcome!” followed by cheering and a big round of hugs? They would certainly remember it!When I joined IBM I was greeted enthusiastically at the door by my buddy, Tracey...
How to Develop a Master Strategy in 3 Steps
Many of you have told me that you want to improve your strategy work. Well, it’s not that complicated. I try to keep it simple: Look back.Look around.Look ahead. Look BackIt’s helpful to take a look at successes and failures in recent history. What has been learned? Where have we...
Change: Tell Them What It’s Not
Lately I’ve been speaking with leaders with worldwide responsibility for directing strategic change. In comparing notes about our experience, it’s interesting how often we have to remind employees about what is out of scope, unrelated, and just not changing at all. While we attend to the strategic level, getting the...
Who the Heck is Accountable for Change??
“So, we’re going to be switching the Classix system over to Nuvo!” “What? Why?” “Classix is out-dated. No one uses it anymore. I’ve seen Nuvo and it is really slick. Plus it gives us a bunch of new features we could really use to serve our customers.” “Ridiculous. Classix works...
What to do When Morale Takes a Hit
Development is behind. Good people are asked to leave the organization. Employees think the change is more pain than gain. Training requires time that people simply don’t have. It’s rare that a program of change doesn’t face dark days. We get tired of working long hours, tired of pushing back,...
Is Your Organization Getting Dumber?
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” During a change workshop I was running, we discussed the importance of taking time after a project to reflect on what worked well, and what didn’t. Lessons learned. A participant commented, “We call that ‘lessons documented’.” Cynical, but not...
Money won’t motivate you, or anyone else
“They can’t leave now!! Do something! Throw some money at them!” Have you ever felt that panic when a good employee resigns? Incenting them to stay is a common knee-jerk reaction. From employees to electric cars, we’ve tried to change behavior and buying habits by financing a better option. It...
AI says “Shooting the Breeze” is Important for Productivity
In the spirit of resilience, I'm trying new things. Rytr is an artificial intelligence-powered app that claims to produce solid written material with a specific tone for your desired topic. I entered “socializing in meetings is important” and asked for a "convincing" post. Rytr produced this: Socializing in meetings is important because...
