How we think about things influences how we perceive the world. Our brain works as one big filter and categorizer and puts frameworks around how information is processed. And it is that framework… Continue reading
You do NOT need to be a professional facilitator of teams in order to generate more intrinsic motivation and engagement. All you need to do is involve people in aligning to the vision… Continue reading
Lots of data suggest that good strategic planning is different than good strategic planning implementation, and that 90 to 95% of initiatives fail to meet management expectations even though the initial thinking was… 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
How many of us felt something like this just happened as we celebrated Independence Day on July 4 and went back to work on Monday? I, at least, try to address Square Wheels… Continue reading
I was about to respond to a LinkedIn thread when I realized that I needed a new poster, so here is one on Coaching. Of course, I am tongue in cheek when I… Continue reading
The idea for this came up from a comment 15 years ago from one of the senior managers of the Hong Kong Civil Service, where I showed the basic Square Wheels One wagon… Continue reading
Here is another business Haiku around the theme of trust, discontent and motivation that I thought you might like. The ideas for improvement are already in the wagon — the cargo — but… Continue reading
I got two other business quotes up in this blog today, both using the Square Wheels LEGO version of my main cartoon so I thought to add one more… This is an oft-used… Continue reading
I continue to be amazed at how we continue to make cuts while expecting improvement. Personally, I feel that the supervisors in most organizations are so overloaded with tasks and responsibilities that they… Continue reading
I saw some Pinterest quotes on a list this morning and I just HAD to do this one: I think that confidence is good, but any strength, taken to its excess, can have… Continue reading
Motivation – we make the concept so complicated, with detailed theories about positive reinforcement and various schedules of reward delivery (Variable Ratio delivery generates the highest response rate while Differential Reinforcement of Low… Continue reading
I think it is pretty simple, really. To involve and engage people in workplace improvement, one needs to involve and engage people in workplace improvement. That is pretty simple, right? And a bit… Continue reading
“If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten…” This is an old quote I remember from my NLP training 20 years ago and… Continue reading
Every so often, it just reaches a point where the Pin finally hits the balloon. People can sometimes have a pretty good tolerance for crappy stuff, but everyone also has a threshold. When… 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
A business tip on an idea for helping an organization make improvements in how things really work: Stop pushing and pulling the wagon and talk about ideas for improvement. And Have FUN… Continue reading
My friend Lisa Marshall passed this along in an email and I thought it was really well done. Taylor Mali talking about, well, like, you know… Click on and watch this 3-minute video… 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
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
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
I put up a series of cartoons and text, taking some screenshots as well as leaving them in modifiable form. You can download them for free and either use my screenshots or customize… Continue reading
As I continue playing with the main design aspects of my new teambuilding game framed up on the theme of trust, three illustrations just seemed to appear, so I took the time to… 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
Teamwork is about groups of people making shared decisions and working together to implement solutions to shared problems. In our Lost Dutchman team building exercise, teams get resources to manage and decisions to make… Continue reading
We often use these “View from the Top” illustrations to show how things might or should look and how they really look. We have a dozen or so illustrations from the Square Wheels… Continue reading
This was one of those Statements of Truth that I read in “The Dilbert Principles,” a book by Scott Adams. Can you say this anyways better? All good companies have one. Yep.… Continue reading
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
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
A simple illustrated concept is show here. Basically, the reality is that people who feel they are being attacked by their management will defend themselves in some way. Often, this involves a personal… 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
In China, there is a Great Wall. There are also Great Walls in most organizations, each with its own wagon trains. Is Interdepartmental Collaboration an oxymoron?There are lots of ways to improve communications.… Continue reading
