Business Haiku on Mentoring and Transformation
The painter sees a different reality than what presently exists. It is a caterpillar no longer in thought. You can read a LOT more about Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly by clicking on… Continue reading
Category Archive: change
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Square Wheels Haiku – Thoughts and an image on Improvement
I started doing a whole big bunch of haiku poems for business process improvement. This is one of the first. I’m having fun with these. And if you want to embellish or improve,… Continue reading
50 Feet Farther than Last Year – a poem
Here is another ditty about work and working, along with connections to how I use the metaphor of 50 feet along with the telling of my Moose Joke: My Moose Joke uses this… Continue reading
Puppies. Square Wheels and Intrinsic Motivation to Implement Improvement
Let’s make improvements to how things work. Why? Because it would impact the puppies, of course. and this one is similar to this one: Yeah, we CAN improve the rolling forward of the… Continue reading
Poems about Puppies, Square Wheels and Performance Improvement
I continue to play with the puppies. They are just such cute things. But the linking of puppies back to the performance improvement of the pushers and puller continues to be a difficult… Continue reading
Change and Improvement – a poem on butterflies
Creating butterflies in your workplace would seem to be a lot better than simply supporting the lifestyle of the caterpillars. The related thought is that caterpillars are a lot easier to manage. Is… Continue reading
People and Potential – Releasing the Butterfly
So many of our interactions with others in our daily management could focus on potential. Most of us have that ability to be more than what we are if we only felt more… Continue reading
It is a Butterfly yet?
So much of our life is about potential, both having it as well as helping others achieve theirs. As part of that, here is another post on the theme of caterpillars and butterflies… Continue reading
Caterpillars and Butterflies and Change and Potential
For the past few weeks, I have been playing with my illustrations and pictures and the themes of managing and leading change and improvement. So much of it has to do with unrealized… Continue reading
Square Wheels, Caterpillars and Butterflies — It is about the flight!
What is it about caterpillars? Is it because they are so grounded? And what it is about the butterfly — why are they often so attractive? A lot of it seems to be… Continue reading
Caterpillars can fly – a quote by Scott Simmerman
One of my most favorite quotes about change, visions, potential and style: Managers can fly more better faster if they just look at their styles and see the opportunities for better involvement and… Continue reading
Butterflies and Change – A Quote about Less and More
This is about potential. After all, caterpillars do make the transition to butterflies and it is about potential. It is also about accepting change and becoming more and better. Change is what we… Continue reading
Square Wheels – Dream to Fly
This is about people and performance, about dreaming of possibilities and it is about the reality of improvement. Dream to Fly! For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of… Continue reading
Making the Workplace FUN!
Motivation and engagement are two critical factors for workplace improvement. So, I ask you, “What’s wrong with this picture of how things really work in most organizations?” What choice have probably been made… Continue reading
On Progress and Improvement – Issues of Choice
On the theme of: “Don’t Just DO Something, Stand There!” we have this kind of thought about choice and choices: So much depends on simply seeing what are called “considered alternatives” instead of… Continue reading
Nobody Ever Washes a Rental Car – Ownership and Involvement
I got to looking at some stuff on “empowerment” within the past hour. One was about an “empower camp” where they claim that by attending the camp, kids will leave with, well, empowerment… Continue reading
Don’t Just DO Something, Stand There!
I posted up a comment on a magazine article about a friend’s blog and it reminded me of a cartoon and a poem that I have not used in a while. The issue… Continue reading
Followup is the key to improving teamwork and results – a poem
The Jeep causes teams to creep. But discovery of a Turbocharger allows that jeep to go twice as fast / twice as far. Turbos are best practices that enable people to dramatically improve… Continue reading
Reflecting on Results; Looking for Improvements: Two Illustrations
Reflection is a primary way to identify new ideas and opportunities. Too often we continue to do things the same way expecting things to change. One of my favorite quotes is from the… Continue reading
Getting the Boots Aligned, in the Rain, in the Main
Our team building exercise, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, is about generating and benefitting measurably from collaboration and alignment. When people share information and resources, the entire group optimizes its… Continue reading
The Christopher Columbus Award – for “leadership”
Christopher Columbus — there is a lot of controversy over the man and his accomplishments and how history is representing things. Supposedly, nearly everyone knew that the world was not flat in the… Continue reading
Running Around sure is FUN! But getting things done?
Activity is not the same as action, and focused actions are a key way to build teamwork and collaboration, improve communications, and increase intrinsic motivation. Ya think? We need to do more things… Continue reading
Thoughts on Change – “What the Caterpillar calls The End of The World!”
One of the main focus of my work for the past 25 years has been on the general theme of people and performance, often around the concept of managing and leading change. This… Continue reading
Changing Fear to Fun – The Key
Many people have fears. I show that here as the Fear of Change from my Square Wheels illustrations on workplace improvement. They are afraid of what the Wave of Change will do… Continue reading
Reorganizing for Performance Improvement – A Paradox
We often think of making structural changes to improve performance. Sometimes, that works. Sometimes, it just confuses things like working relationships, measurement systems, and the tools to get the job done may now… Continue reading
Making Progress means Flying Higher
We use the metaphor of Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly for a lot of our work on individual and organizational change. The concept is simple: Getting people to understand that change is inevitable… Continue reading
Thoughts on Mentoring Bob
Mentoring is seeing potential in others and then acting to paint and share a picture of what they could become. So much is about simple perspective. Sometimes it is about choice. Often change… Continue reading
Moments of Team Reflection can generate a New Direction
I have a series of cartoons that focus on reflecting about how things really are. There are 6 of them, each with the theme that you can possibly see new things if you… Continue reading
Surely, Shirley, Change is Good, right?
I had an interview for a blog this morning. It was on managing change and dealing with resistance, which is a good subject for me since I have played in this arena for… Continue reading
If You Always Do, What you have Always Done – a poem on rotten results!
This little ditty popped into my head while I was thinking of some conversations with my pal Lucy Freedman of Syntax. We share a background of NLP and similar behavioral approaches to improving… Continue reading
Continuous Continuous Improvement of Processes and Procedures
I use the words, “Continuous Continuous Improvement” because of the reality that many people will say that they have DONE continuous improvement, which is really a paradox and not possible. How can you… Continue reading
Square Wheels are Everywhere, with a poem and cartoon to prove it!
If you don’t believe this little ditty, just try showing the Square Wheels One illustration to a group of people and ask them what is happening and how the cartoon might represent how… Continue reading
Teaching The Caterpillar to Fly – Thought to Remember
This is a simple theme that we use in our thoughts about Teaching The Caterpillar to Fly. You can find a 5-part series of posts and illustrations by clicking on the image. You… Continue reading
Doing Nothing is NOT Making Progress
It is surprising how many people think that maintaining the status quo is actually maintaining anything. A cartoon on that looks like this: And, when we consider the situation, it looks and sounds… Continue reading
Daniel Kahneman’s View of How People Really Think
Here is my view of the main theme of Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman’s most excellent book on how people think and make decisions. It is a great read. One key point… Continue reading
Traveling with the Square Wheels Team
I saw some slogans for traveling and thought that they made pretty funny captions for Square Wheels One: Performance Management Company sells easy to use toolkits for generating better involvement, engagement and innovation.
Alligators and Sharks – they mean competition
We’ve played with the metaphor of alligators and sharks as “motivating forces” in many of our workshops. Sometimes, you have to just get moving! You just cannot afford to freeze and not make… Continue reading
Activity is not Action.
Looking busy and keeping active simply prevents you from looking around to see obvious performance improvement possibilities. The Round Wheels are already IN the wagon. Consider this as you step back from the… Continue reading
Playing with Ideas involves and engages
The Round Wheels are already in the Square Wheel wagon. But implementation requires people to play with ideas before they can truly implement change. Playing with ideas helps involvement and innovation and generates… Continue reading
The Potential to Make Things Happen
Unseen potential is always there. Good ideas can come from unexpected places.
Politics, Culture and Organizational Mud. How do we make progress?
Getting things done? Maybe. What changes do we need?
Everyone Can Contribute, Surprisingly
Ideas can come from everywhere. Don’t be surprised, just look for good ones when they appear. Good ideas come from hands-on people, who understand the realities of how things work and who have… Continue reading
Dealing with the Mud of Management and the making of improvements
Sometimes, we get up to our axles in mud and we need to consider that there might be a different way to address issues of performance, rather than doing the same old thing… Continue reading
Thoughts on Mentoring – Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly
A lot of what we do is simply about perspective and viewpoint. Good leaders tend to see things differently and look for potential. The butterfly is already in the caterpillar. And caterpillars can… Continue reading
Thoughts on Intrinsic Motivation
How things really work. With some obvious inferences about what might be done differently… Why do the above, when we might do something more like this: How might we do things more better… Continue reading
Discover the Road – Square Wheels and Mud, a Haiku
A Haiku on dealing with the mud of the journey forward. Note that you are NOT on the road… Do things better and differently. Please Like this if you LIKE this! Have FUN… Continue reading