How do I define leadership? Leadership is the ability to adapt the setting so everyone feels empowered to contribute creatively to solving the problems. Leadership is an ability, meaning a leader has a capacity to do something through talent and skill. Talent is natural ability and skill is proficiency gained through training and experience. Talent … [Read more...]
Protecting the Team
Workshop A vital task for a successful team is to extend membership to the right people and deny membership to the wrong people. If you add or persist with the wrong people, the team will fail at some level. Feelings about who is excluded cut deep. Talk to anyone about exclusion and you will hear a personal story about a … [Read more...]
Saying No
One week before the application you have been working on is to be delivered, your client asks you to make a small change to a drop down menu. He knows there isn't time to process the change through change management so he asks you to bypass it. You try to reason with him that a last minute change is a bad idea. But he insists the change is … [Read more...]
Waiting For People Who Arrive Late
What does it say about the participants of a weekly meeting when the meeting consistently starts 5-10 minutes behind schedule? Answer, the participants are cooperating with each other to start late. Starting late is the status quo. Let's explore: Are you cooperating with the participants of your meetings to start late? How do you … [Read more...]
Go Dark Loudly
The answer is "X has gone dark". The question is "What frustrates me?" I don't like feeling frustrated. As a member a geographic team, I communicate with my teammates by either email or phone. Sometimes teammates go dark—they completely stop communicating. Paul went dark recently. Attempts to contact him by email received no reply, … [Read more...]