How would your management style change if all your employees were financially independent and their objective was to master their craft while contributing to society? Think about it. Employees would be free to choose whether to stay or go. Oppressive management styles would result in empty buildings. Once upon a time, I had a manager named … [Read more...]
Safety Check
You have heard repeatedly that an agenda is a vital ingredient to a successful meeting. But little is ever heard about safety in meetings—the environmental variable that determines whether people participate or merely observe. How do you measure safety? What actions are available to leaders for creating a safe meeting environment? First published … [Read more...]
Clarify the Story
Jake tossed and turned. He looked at the bedside clock. 3 AM. "I need sleep," he thought to himself. But sleep would not come. Only worry about tomorrow's meeting. Edmund, Jake's manager's manager, enjoyed probing managers in his organization to discover how well they were doing. He expected his managers to lead people so they wanted to follow. … [Read more...]
Don’t Tell Doreen
Jarrett, Doreen and I were on the verge of a closing a big sale. We had crafted the Statement of Work (SOW) for two weeks and had finally reached the point where it satisfied both the customer's desires and the needs of our company. But at the last second, before the document was sent to the customer, Jarrett, the salesman, decided to reduce the … [Read more...]
Make Results Predictable
Your organization is in chaos. You want to create pockets of stability. What do you do? Make the results of meetings predictable. Winfrey is the manager of a geographically dispersed software development team at the XYZ Corp. Ellsworth, her manager, assigns Winfrey the management responsibility of hosting a biweekly training conference call. … [Read more...]