Expectations

SmartBlog on Leadership – Can Your Team Say No?

May 17, 2012

    Twice a month, Lead Change Group authors write a blog post on the SmartBlog on Leadership site. Today it’s my turn with a post called How to Get Your Team to Speak Up. It’s based on my observation that many team leaders create a culture where saying “no” is unacceptable, thereby causing their team [...]

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A Vision is a Promise. Are You Keeping Yours?

April 26, 2012

Are you a person of your word? As a leader, when you lay out a vision, you are creating a promise— that the future state will be better than the current one. People buy in to that vision based on their trust in you to get them there.   It’s up to you to deliver. Making [...]

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9 Questions to Help Your Team Create Vision

March 9, 2012

Think back to the last project you led. How did you begin? Were you successful getting people on board, or was it more like herding cats challenging than you’d planned? No matter what you’re leading, getting people to line up behind a vision is the first order of business when you take on a new [...]

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Do You Have a Career Bucket List?

June 17, 2011

The kids and I were on our way to a Little League game the other day when I mentioned, “Hey guys, what do you think about making a list of things to do during your summer break?” “You mean, like a Bucket List?” asked my son. “That’s a great idea!” I exclaimed so on the [...]

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Leaders: Maximize Employee Training

September 24, 2010

“How do we begin to change the culture of expectations in our organizations where instead of being held accountable for participating in learning and development activities, people will be held accountable for applying and using and changing their job performance?” –Robert Brinkerhoff   This quote appeared in the August 2010 issue of T+D magazine. Brinkerhoff [...]

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The Ambiguity Factor

December 3, 2009

When was the last time you heard an employee say “Wow, the implementation of that new program (system/process/idea) was smooth!” My guess is you’ve rarely (perhaps never?) heard that.  There are oodles of reasons why the launch of a new system goes awry— competing values, unclear objectives, unrealistic deadlines, budget constraints and so on.  Here’s [...]

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Praising Mastery

November 6, 2009

I’m reading the book The Power of Respect by Deborah Norville.  She cites a very interesting study from the journal Motivation and Emotion. In this study, a group of researchers from Reed College in Oregon studied whether one form of praise was more effective than another.  The researchers used two different types of praise: “mastery”, [...]

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What’s It Hurt To Ask?

October 16, 2009

I just returned from conducting on-site meetings for a new client.  The CEO of this company hired me to help his employees make the transition to a new organizational structure. We’re doing a series of input meetings, SWOT analyses and informational interviews.  Something that one of the employees said this morning is really sticking with [...]

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When OK is The Best We Can Expect

October 5, 2009

The other day I was exchanging emails with my friend Kathleen who has extremely diverse interests.  She’s an accounting software trainer/working artist / gallery owner.  (How’s THAT for variety?!) It had been awhile since we’d talked and I inquired—“how are you?”  Kathleen emailed back, “I’m fine…well, OK.  But ‘OK’ is the new ‘Fine’, right?”  After [...]

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