Too Busy to Improve?
There is a lot of background around this new poster, and a few different versions of things. But the basic idea is about how ideas are handled. Here, a person (an outsider, an… Continue reading
Category Archive: communications
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The Desk – a place to think — a Poem done in the Dr. Seuss style
Just a thought about how things could work better in some workplaces. We need to think about more possibilities, for sure: For the… Continue reading
A Business Planning Square Wheels Haiku
The seasons change and we need to be individually and collectively prepared. But are we preparing with the right approach? Consider: One might think that a collective approach involving the participants might generate,… Continue reading
Organizational Alignment, LEGO, Square Wheels and Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
I thought a crazy title might catch your eye and I guess it did! Organizational Alignment is critical for organizational efficiency and effectiveness, but most organizations are NOT aligned and most people find… Continue reading
The Round Wheels of Change – a business haiku
Change is always an interesting process. So is innovation and creativity. Communications is such a critical factor. How are you doing with YOUR workplace communications and engagement? For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott… Continue reading
A Desk is a Dangerous Place from which to view the world…
John LeCarre said in one of his books, “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” And most of us would certainly agree with that assessment. I would add… Continue reading
The Ditch. The Road. Your Choice
Leading teams is about communications and shared missions and goals. Too often, wagon pushers are not involved and engaged nor do they have a clear sense of where they are going. The reality… Continue reading
Team Building Success – The Stairway Model
Heavy drinking last night must have given me the idea of The Stairway Model of Team Building Success. You be the judge… The Stairway Model develops from the Escalator Model, which was built… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Downhill Journeys and Square Wheels
Understanding the Lay of the Land is important, and also the reality of the journey forward. If all you do is pull, all you will see is forward. And while that might have… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Motivation and Employee Engagement
Ah, The Slackers! Let’s put the blame on the people for not being motivated, right? After all, the workplace itself must be motivating since at least one of our people seems motivated every… Continue reading
Success takes care of itself?
There was a Henry Ford quote that clanged with me so I popped it into my Square Wheels powerpoint master file and came up with an image for discussion. So, I got this:… Continue reading
Workplace Happiness – YOU Choose!
Yes, “work” can and does get old, especially when you choose to do the same things for the same reasons with the same results, day after day and week after week. On the… Continue reading
Thoughts on Questions – a quote on patience
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” is a quote from the poet Ranier Maria Rilke It speaks to the issues of being… Continue reading
New Year Resolutions in Month Eight
It is August. How are you doing on your resolutions to improve your workplace now that it is Month Eight? There is still time to get things done more better faster. For… Continue reading
Positive Disruptive Engagement – a Definition
We need to better involve and engage people in our workplaces, and we cannot do that by implementing another survey or continuing to do things the same way. We need to Free The… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Making Progress with Square Wheels
The Round Wheels are already in the wagon, and people can easily discover that. But sometimes they need outside inspiration or a challenge to really understand that they need to do things #morebetterfaster… Continue reading
Business Haiku on motivation and innovation
Simple and self-explanatory CAN we have innovation without involvement? Don’t the bosses need to be actively involved and aware themselves? For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games… Continue reading
Questions to be asked about people and performance – Square Wheels Project
Performance improvement is about conversations and perspective. The people know what needs to be done differently, so asking for their ideas and input is a really effective strategy for some disruptive engagement: The… Continue reading
Simplicity of Problem Solving – Find the ROUND Wheels
Lots of people are random sorters of information, possibilities sorters, and their preferred styles of thinking might be expressed as, “Throwing mud at the wire fence to see what sticks where…” For those… Continue reading
Teambuilding.sucks – It certainly can!
There is good teambuilding and then there is the other stuff, the things that you regret having even seen, much less participated in. Among other things, the difference is in what the event… Continue reading
Santa Rocks
And Santa rolls now, more than he rocked before. You can see that those Square Wheels are being replaced by some round ones… For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer… Continue reading
Haiku on Thoughtfulness
Here is a haiku poem on Thoughtfulness and another on Consideration. In both cases, the focus is on making improvements in how things work to roll forward #morebetterfaster. The Round Wheels are already… Continue reading
Long Lost Dr. Seuss Poem on The Workplace
I am not sure how to illustrate this, but I thought to post it. And, to have a visual, I will post up three of my Dumpster posters… It was shared with me… Continue reading
One Liners and Thoughts on Writing Good
Well, if you did not get the gist of this posting from the title, you should get it quickly as you look at the first image. Well? I did not really know where… Continue reading
On Negative Thoughts and Negative Engagement
While Donald Trump did not originally say this, I think that most people could believe that he did or could. The quote seems to be congruent with his management style. He is not… Continue reading
Choice and Choices – Do Things Differently!
Things are the way they are because they are what they are. We know that nothing made sense, because neither did anything else. So, instead of wondering why, wonder what. Wonder what you… Continue reading
On Listening – A Poster for Thinking
The idea of, “Ask and Ye Shall Receive” should be familiar to most readers. A short article in Workforce by the CEO of a survey company (Michael Papay) said that a listening culture… Continue reading
Listening – a Poem on Performance Improvement
I saw a post about how to be a better manager and it focused on listening to people. Not reading it, I guessed that it says that if you listen to others, you… Continue reading
Impressions and Customer Service
I am trying to find a new vendor and it has been wild as the franchisees of this organization continue to fail to respond to me in a way so that I would… Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving – a poem about US in the workplace
I thought you might like this poem using my US / THEM theme and a focus on change and improvement. By clicking on this image, you will go to my slideshare site where… Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving Haiku – on people and workplace improvement
Here is a Thankgiving Haiku on sustaining workplace communications and success and about teamwork and team innovation. I hope you like it. Clicking on the image will take you to a whole big… Continue reading
Thanksgiving Poem – on improving workplace communications
Thanksgiving is almost upon us again, so I thought to pop into powerpoint and spin up a few poems about workplace performance, people and communications. I also put a powerpoint file of a… Continue reading
Birds and Roads, a paradox
I just saw an article in LinkedIn that talked about life being a road with lots of signs and that we should visualize what needs to be achieved and convert that into the… Continue reading
Perfectionism: Some Square Wheels Thinking
An acquaintance shared that she will be presenting on TV about “perfectionism.” It is actually something I know very little about, even though a lot of people seem to think that I am… Continue reading
Zen Koans on Worker Involvement and Engagement
I thought to try to visualize things from the Back of the Wagon and to anchor a few zen-type thoughts as to non-involvement and non-engagement and the reality of workplace motivation. You be… Continue reading
Zen Koan on Workplace Engagement and Leadership
I just thought that this might anchor to some thoughts about behavioral alternatives and leadership and engagement and some workplace issues like motivation and innovation. Ya think? (grin) My belief and my experience… Continue reading
Square Wheels Haiku on Organizational Improvement
It’s been a while since I popped a haiku into the poems blog, so here is one on the issues of leadership and organizational improvement. The wagons roll along like they always have,… Continue reading
A Square Wheels Working Reality and the ending “dous”
When I came across the interesting thing about English words and the –dous ending, I immediately thought of the illustration of how things really work in so many organizations. Thought you might like… Continue reading
Moron National Employee UN-Appreciation Day
My cynicism continues this morning as I read more about the dis-connection of so many workers as I write on my developing toolkits of Roadblock Management and of Facilitation for Workplace improvement. They… Continue reading
Listening? Awareness of its impacts is awakening
My friend Gary Loper shared the fact that we are fast approaching International Listening Month, which is March. Gary is going to be hosting a chat on the subject here and I thought… Continue reading
HELP! Please compare two different versions of Square Wheels LEGO
My son, whose old LEGO pieces I have been using, suggested that I make the Square Wheels wagon and scenes out of ONLY legitimate LEGO instead of the hybrid assemblies that I have… Continue reading
Continuous Continuous Improvement – Reality
In a LinkedIn thread, the issue of organizational improvement was raised and I commented about the reality that continuous improvement was something that many managers strive to achieve, once! Too many people simply… Continue reading
Communications: What you think you said and what they might have heard
I was wandering around the connected world and came across a most favorite kind of article, one that posted up factoidal information. Gretchen Gavett at HBR shared some interesting charts and data. You… Continue reading
I’m Thinking Thoughts on Motivation and Improvement
Thinking. A good idea for most managers. Perspective. A good thing for most managers. Engagement. A good process for most employees. Improvement. A good accomplishment for most organizations. Implementation. A difficult task for… Continue reading
The Boss, Thinking and Missing; A Dr. Seuss style poem
Thought you might like this little glimpse of organizational reality, but here is my LEGO version of how things really work in most organizations along with a Dr. Seuss-style poem of the commonplace… Continue reading
Dr. Seuss-Style Thanksgiving Poem on Thinking and Being Great
Well, when one gets into the grove of messing around with poems, one actually starts messing around with poems. I’ve always liked that Dr. Seuss style of saying things so there is a… Continue reading
A Poem on Thanksgiving Communications and Success
All of us can look back over the year and see successes and we can all look forward to see opportunities to work together and generate new and improved results. Innovation often takes… Continue reading
Business Haiku – Innovation through Conversation
Thought that this was a cute little ditty to spin up: Hope that all things go well. More of these to come. For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of… Continue reading
Peter Drucker Quote and a LEGO Square Wheels post on Management
I saw this in my image files and realize I had not popped it into anything so, here we go. It was going to appear in a longer blog on thinking about management… Continue reading