Ah, the animal kingdom offers so many examples of the workplace and behavioral choices. And, using those natural scenes, we can often see individuals in motion, building things and implementing change and dealing… Continue reading
This is one of my Dr. Seuss-style poems on organizational leadership and development. Leadership is about knowing that there are many more smart people in your group than you. There are many more… Continue reading
Look at this simple illustration about how things work and don’t think about innovation: Don’t think about process improvement possibilities. Don’t think about issues of engagement and involvement. Don’t think about what might… Continue reading
Change is about considered alternatives, since you cannot make changes happen until there is a viable alternative to what you are doing now. Stepping back from the wagon is a way to generate… Continue reading
I packaged up a slideshare program telling the story of Susan, a wagon pusher, and her courage in suggesting that her wagon-pulling boss take a different look at how things are working, with… Continue reading
There are often issues of isolation in how things work in most organizations. Wagon pullers are naturally isolated from the hands-on reality of the wagon pushers, but some are also simply too distant… Continue reading
Trust is sure an interesting issue. It is one of the core values of every organization and it plays into every interchange between people. And it is certainly an issue that deserves reflection… Continue reading
Celebrating even small steps forward is a key factor in building up the peer pressure for success and continuous continuous improvement. After all, once you DO address the Square Wheels and implement some… Continue reading
Another one of the standard business quotes from past decades is this quote about risk and action and reward. Getting things done is a lot about how risk is perceived, how you manage… Continue reading
Apologies for this miss-aligned and non-poetic post but I wanted to share the information that a new slideshare program on our team building game for collaboration and alignment was uploaded a few minutes… Continue reading
Here is a BIG IDEA that is really pretty simple, really. To involve and engage people in workplace improvement, involve and engage people in workplace improvement. Seriously. Assume that people have actually do… Continue reading
I thought to illustrate this most excellent quote by J. R. R. Tolkien from a poem from The Lord of The Rings: You can find some other business quotes elsewhere in this poems… Continue reading
My last blog quote post of today — this is number 5. We talk leadership all the time and there are thousands or tens of thousands of books about the issue. SO much… Continue reading
I just read the start of a discussion in one of my LinkedIn groups called, “Think Like a Leader” and which references an HBR video by Daniel Goleman, who I really like and… Continue reading
I thought to start a short series of Thoughts on Business that employ graphic images and some of my more favorite quotes. The idea is to frame some of the illustrations of Square… Continue reading
In the past couple of days, a number of different threads on LinkedIn and in emails have had me post up some reference to Daniel Kahneman’s great book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” Some… Continue reading
Here is the third and last of the brown business haiku series anchored to the opportunity to make a change when we are making a change. Daylight Savings Time represents a time for… Continue reading
Here are two nice haiku around the issue of the value of making changes to improve your workplace and the gratification that comes from making such changes. DO note that the change may… Continue reading
Finally, enough was enough and the performers found that the pin had actually HIT the balloon and all things went “POP!” That happens, you know. But I guess the good news is that… Continue reading
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
I continue playing with the bigger powerpoint file and the creation of poems and questions for followup in Lost Dutchman team building game and around the Square Wheels illustrations. As my friend and colleague… Continue reading
It is about having fun, playing with new ideas, and then anchoring those new ideas to commitments for improvement. So, people Celebrating Success is an obvious key. It builds spirit and allows for… Continue reading
The “team communications” and agreement cartoon in the boxes below is one that we use a good bit in the debriefing of The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, since it has… Continue reading
Teams need to “cross the desert” and get to the Mine where they can find the Gold. This is the metaphor of The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine and also a… Continue reading
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
Much of the play of our Lost Dutchman team building game is about managing resources so that the team’s vehicle can make it to and from the mine with as much Gold as… Continue reading
This is one of the little ditties that rolls out of our Lost Dutchman game, where the goal is to Mine as much Gold as WE can! ALL of us can do better… Continue reading
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
Some thoughts on allowing people to play with ideas, and those ideas will transform themselves into a different reality. But it is really hard to innovate when all you do is pull and… Continue reading
Engagement, innovative design, and teamwork go hand in hand for designing better products and services. Daniel Kahneman’s work on “Thinking Fast and Slow” clearly shows that different patterns of thinking will generate better… Continue reading
We need to recognize where our processes are constrained and look for ways to make improvements in how things flow. This involves planning and collaboration and communications, key issues for leadership.
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
Ah, the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893, where the soldiers fired the gun and everyone took off to claim the land that they wanted. It was a great way to populate the state… Continue reading
Those Square Wheels are actually good things to have on a hot-air balloon. They work well for helicopters, too. You can also use them for going down very steep hills… Plus, they cook… Continue reading
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
In Lost Dutchman, teams can acquire a Turbocharger, which is a metaphor for a Best Practice. This enables them to perform at a higher level, simply because they have innovated and improved how… Continue reading
In many organizations, the thrill of competition tends to make it more fun to compete than collaborate. Innocent sabotage is a common happening.
Getting things done? Maybe. What changes do we need?
Interdepartmental Collaboration is a recognized oxymoron – two words that do not go together. Often, it is simply our policies and procedures and attitudes towards others that generate the result. Consider possibilities… … Continue reading
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
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
There are always other solutions. Not all of them are great ones! Be careful what you wish for. Not ALL things are really improvements and there are impacts from everything you press onto… Continue reading
People with different views can collaborate to produce a better outcome. People can combine their different perspectives to generate an even richer idea for innovation and implementation. For the FUN of It! Dr.… Continue reading
