People, Projects, and Organizations
The Chicken or the Egg…Is it the Same for Leaders and Followers?
You’ve heard the saying. What came first the chicken or the egg? It’s used to highlight a circular reference between two entities such as leaders and followers. Leaders need followers to get better organizational results and followers need leaders to get better individual results. It makes sense; however, this view is not as common as ...
Four Personas Leaders Must Balance to be Effective
It’s no secret that leaders receive a lot of attention. They are involved in highly visible activities, make decisions that affect whole organizations, and interact with countless people. Everything they do is observed by others and accordingly contributes to how people perceive them. These perceptions are very important and powerful as they influence others around ...
How to Pop a Change Bubble
The FUD factor: Fear . . . Uncertainty . . . Doubt. It affects everyone in one way or another. Some get paralyzed by it and others get a rush of excitement. Nowhere is this truer in our lives than how we deal with change, especially when it is forced on us and out of ...
Employment’s Funny Little Dynamics
Employment – A simple contract between an employer and an employee. The employee agrees to perform some set of activities and in return the employer agrees to compensate them for doing so. Sounds pretty simple . . . right? That’s because we haven’t considered the dynamics generated by job security, an employee’s desires, and the ...
Three Tactics for Personal Growth
Have you ever thought about how different you are now than you were five years ago? How about ten years ago? You know in your head you have changed but identifying to what degree is difficult. That’s because you’ve changed slowly over time. Rarely in life do we encounter a significant event that drastically changes ...
People Want to do Good, BUT . . .
I know you have lots of reasons to not believe this, but people are good. They care about others and want to help those in need. Yes , yes . . there are some rotten people out there, but their percentage is much lower than you think. Most people know the difference between what’s good ...
Three Traits of People Who Make Things Happen
There is this notion that exists out there in companies that everyone should be treated the same. No one should receive preferential treatment or have an advantage. It should be fist come first serve with no short cuts allowed. Processes, rules, and conventions should be followed by everyone at all times. Some people believe this ...
Do Your Project Stakeholders Resemble Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Most projects start off with low levels of stress and lots of congeniality. Meetings are filled with give-and-take where people are amenable to differing views and approaches. How nice. But when the project gets underway and things don’t progress exactly as planned, stress levels start to increase and meeting become confrontational. Stakeholders become much less ...
To Confront or Not Confront
We all have found ourselves in one or more situations where we had to decide whether or not to confront someone. It could have been at the store when someone cut in line ahead of you, on a flight when someone was mistreating the flight attendant, or at the office when an employee’s work was ...
So, You Can’t Get People to Use the Software Tool
You hear about it all the time. Organizations invest in a software tool and then struggle with its adoption. It could be project management, customer relationship management (CRM), requirements management, or any other type of software tool. What started with high hopes of efficiency and value ends up being a cost burden. But, there are ...
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