Engagement and The Boss – a Haiku
I was reading Dan Rockwell’s twitter feed, looking for some ideas to help frame up our new revision of the Seven Seas Quest team building game and thought to reframe one of his… Continue reading
Category Archive: leadership
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How can we impact workplace performance and innovation?
How can we impact workplace performance? Perspective and Teamwork. The consideration of New Possibilities. Active engagement and active involvement with innovation. Implementation, (at last in many cases). And continuous continuous improvement. Captured in… Continue reading
Thinking Agile, for MoreBetterFaster Improvements
GapingVoid had a nice image distributed through email with text that got me thinking about Square Wheels® and Agile Thinking that I reframed into my scheme of things. Their focus was on business… Continue reading
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
Thoughts on Knowledge and Thinking
A reality is that ALL of us know more than ANY of us, and we are often blind to new ideas because we are so invested and embedded in the old paradigms. Sometimes,… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Motivation and Teamwork
The View at the Front of the Wagon is a very different one than The View at the Back of the Wagon. There is that old quote that if you don’t know where… Continue reading
“My Team, My Team” – a poem on teamwork
Teamwork is an important thing in most organizations. But “Interdepartmental Collaboration” remains an oxymoron, too. Most managers do not collaborate because their measurement systems are not aligned to measure collaborative results and bonuses… 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
YOUR Value, your BOSS, and your Team
How do we value ourselves and our contribution to the team? It is a reasonable question that each of us need to ask every day. Note that your personal contributions to your team… 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
Business Haiku on Engagement and Discontent
Possibilities and Potential. Ah, if we could only get there from here… I continue to think that improving active involvement and generating some positive Disruptive Engagement are pretty straightforward, at least insofar as… Continue reading
How much is the ball? A team building opportunity
In his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman posts up a most excellent question that I share below. My thought was to add a bit of reality about organizational issues and opportunities,… Continue reading
Business Haiku – Working Hard and Making Progress
Here are two new Haiku sprung from my newer Square Wheels images about how organizations really work. Your thoughts? If you have needs for more teamwork to generate better business outcomes, consider that… Continue reading
The Paradox of Images and LEGO and construction
We working hard to illustrate a big bunch of things from my Square Wheels themes and quotes collections and to build a lot of scenes into my Lost Dutchman team building game. But,… 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
Learning is a Round Wheels Treasure
Here’s a Chinese Proverb about LEARNING that is also about perceptual acuity and perspective, collaboration, engagement, empowerment and all that stuff. The key is to spend a minute in silent reflection / meditation… Continue reading
Learn to See – Da Vinci and Square Wheels of Connectedness and Engagement
I read this quote from Leonardo da Vinci and checked it for authenticity and then popped it into the context of organizational improvement. I am guessing that his workplaces in his times were… 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
Zen Thinking on Workplace Motivation
I thought you might like this one: We are constantly talking about motivation and leadership and how to involve and engage people, to empower them and to generate improved performance. But there must… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Thumpy Wheeling and Positive Disruptive Engagement
How DO we get things rolling to improve empowerment and engagement? Probably by DIS-un-empowerment and DIS-un-engagement practiced by the workplace supervisor. Who else will impact the people and change the way things work?… Continue reading
Consider The Gap – the issues between ideas and implementation
“Change is Good. You go first,” was one of the quotes in The Dilbert Principle, a book on business principles and organizational improvement by Scott Adams. And there is something to be said… 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
Balance, Zen, Choices and Square Wheels
Going through some of the older line art around the issues of leadership and choices and how we think about thinking about things, I thought you might like this one. I mean, 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
Shifts in Thinking – Some Reframing Ideas
Thinking – Breakfast of Champions. So what did you think and what might you think? It is all about the choices we make,    For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of… Continue reading
A poem on People and Performance, Commitment and Motivation
I thought to illustrate a simple poem with a couple of our LEGO® Square Wheels® scenes. Remember that a real key to all this is VISION. For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a… Continue reading
Haiku on Motivating and Engaging and Workplace Improvement
How do you motivate your wagon pushers? You have to involve and engage them in organizational improvement. Check out The Square Wheels Project for some ideas about implementing positive Disruptive Engagement to make… Continue reading
Flowers are like Workplace Improvement Ideas
I uploaded this as a high res image, simply because I could! It is one of the spectacular day lilies from my garden. Fabulous stuff. And you can get fabulous ideas from the… Continue reading
Disruptive Engagement – How ELSE are you going to change things?
Organizations keep doing the same things and expecting engagement and motivation to improve. And, worst than foolish, they are spending millions of dollars on doing surveys to show them that nothing is really… Continue reading
The Weeks of Making Progress
Not published much in a while but LOTS of new haiku and similar things needing to be uploaded. Here are three in my LEGO Square Wheels® series about “the weeks at hand” and… Continue reading
A Poem on Mean – Negative Thoughts on People and Performance
Sometimes I do get carried away, but a while back, I thought to write a somewhat intentionally MEAN poem about people and performance. And it sat there in my files for a long… 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
Poem on Performance Leadership and Innovation
I am trying to keep this both real and simple. It IS about involvement and engagement and it IS about asking for ideas and listening to the answers: So, Don’t Just DO Something,… Continue reading
Wagon Pullers ARE Hardworking – a Square Wheels Business Haiku
Wagon pullers pull. They work hard to move their wagons fast forward. But wagon pullers could also benefit by involving and engaging their wagon pullers more effectively, by working to facilitate involvement and… 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
People are Willing – a Square Wheels Business Haiku
Motivation comes from involvement and engagement and from allowing people to generate ideas for improvement. In The Square Wheels Project LMS, we gives supervisors tools to improve their facilitation skills. Fast. Easy /… Continue reading
Involve and Engage The Boss
Here is one on motivation gained through the facilitation of ideas by a supervisor. How can we improve the Facilitation Skills of the supervisors? Check out The Square Wheels Project, our online training… Continue reading
Square Wheels and Rock and Roll!
Terry Lee was over here and we were listening to songs while we are painting my den and he mentioned Uriah Heep and one of my favorite songs is “July Morning.” So, I… 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
Mark Twain quote on getting started
I disagree with Twain. A lot of people have already started. The key is to make sure that you are doing things effectively and efficiently. Read more about it by clicking on the… 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
Happy Thanksgiving Quote for workplace improvement and teamwork
It is Thanksgiving, and we need to take personal responsibility for the choices we make and what happens. So, maybe you can find a use for this little quote / poem from my… Continue reading
Reflection, Innovation and Engagement
We tend to make understanding the workplace and people a really difficult and complex endeavor. Sure, there are lots of differences and we can cull out themes of leadership and innovation and creativity… Continue reading
Dr. Seuss-style Poem on Engagement and Motivation
There are about 5 different threads that got me to the point of posting this. But the end result of the refocused energy was actually pretty good, I think: Here is the Dr.… Continue reading