so your vision is never lost.
LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS
In working with teams, we frequently run across a common frustration where meetings do not feel productive. The meetings take too long and give too little actionable information; attendees are there in body, but not in heart, mind and spirit. We have a number of tactical tools to deal with this. One way is to ask at the end of every meeting, “What do we need to stop doing?” I asked that in a meeting last week. One member suggested […]
In a recent discussion with Joe Young of Waypoint, we were talking about becoming experts. He indicated that it takes about 500 hours of doing something to really become good at it in other words, an expert. While the amount of time may depend on the topic (i.e. nuclear physics vs. woodcarving), he was making the point that our most valuable commodity is time. Most of our time is spent on who we are now. Joe calls this “Expense Time”. […]
Our family has a long history of being thinkers. We read magazines, newspapers, books, etc. and then talk about them. We talk them to death! As a young man, I thought we “looked smart” since we were thinkers for the last few generations. We also “sounded smart”. Then, thinking to improve our family line, I realized that if a book is written by a “doer”, I can learn from them how to accomplish, so I kept reading and thinking, looking […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses how leadership, teamship and cultureship are all interrelated. As we have worked with organizations developing their leaders, we have discovered that not all leaders are good at creating teams. Strong leaders need the balance of teams in order to continue the growth and success of the organization. We have also found that leaders and teams are not always good at developing the culture of the organization – from […]
Yesterday, we met with the six members of a Leadership Team. Two of the members regularly travel to the 25 locations of the company and work with the leaders at each location. They are very good at what they do and get good results, but not great results. We are trying to position this organization to grow (something they have tried in the past) but the effort always seems to start well and then fail. We were hired to ensure […]
This morning during a meeting with a business owner, he realized that he had failed as a leader. His organization had experienced yet another problem with their internet access. As one of his employees worked on it with tech support, the employee cheerfully made the comment, “At least it is job security!” The owner was happy that this employee so cheerfully went to work on the problem, but then he stopped; then thought, pondered, and began to worry. This owner […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses happiness and whether it comes naturally or if it is a skill that can be learned. We have found working with individuals and organizations through different circumstances, many people who are happy during good and bad are just happy people. Others are just unhappy. If you pull the extremes out, happiness is a skill. Some people are very good at coping or not demonstrating their frustrations when things […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses conflict and conflict resolution. Conflict is an inevitable part of being part of a team and organization. From the miniscule to the complete knock down drag outs, conflict arises on a regular basis as long as communication, perspectives, styles and backgrounds and people are involved. We have found that one of the critical factors in preventing the more catastrophic types of conflict, is setting boundaries. When we set boundaries […]
A client was discussing with us the other day about two hard working employees who are upset about a “lazy” employee. The two hard working employees are becoming demotivated by the fact that they work hard and are doing a good job yet the other employee, when finished with work, does not do anything productive; instead he sits around talking with others. The two resentful employees do not know that this “lazy” employee actually has a serious health issue that […]