My son Jeff had a great idea and simply illustrated it. He was reading one of my earlier blog posts on the workplace and group involvement and gave me the punchline that appears… Continue reading
The basic quote is this one: Good leaders push and drive and move forward, while special ones engage, collaborate and inspire others to greatness. The idea is that doing hard work by oneself… Continue reading
Someone pinned one of my blog posts that had a few optical illusions embedded in it. You can see that here: So, having the master powerpoint file for my Posters open, I thought… Continue reading
Will work actually make you a Zombie or is that simply your choice for how you do things? Will you just stumble along unmotivated and uncaring about the world around you or will… 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
Someone made a LinkedIn comment about innovation and improvement and I popped in a quip that I thought would be a good poster, so here we go: Continuous continuous improvement is a… Continue reading
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
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
For many years, I have used this quote to remind people that engagement is an active and involving process. You cannot motivate people who are just not engaged. And you should look at… 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
A discussion group in LinkedIn had a post today about “GO” being the first thing that someone should do as a new manager. DO SOMETHING seemed to be the main thrust. I wrote… Continue reading
It is funny how one thought leads into another. After designing the LEGO haiku I posted up a bit ago, another framework came to mind as I was thinking of these same issues… Continue reading
Wax on. Wax off. Wax on. Wax off. Mr. Miyagi was helping Daniel Caruso in a famous scene in The Karate Kid — repeating the same motions over and over again to develop… Continue reading
Everybody has ideas and everybody has perspective. But perspective is relative to where you are and what you do. Often, the wagon-pulling boss simply cannot see the actions and activities of the wagon… Continue reading
Using LEGO and my Square Wheels main cartoon, I offer up this little Dr. Seuss – type poem for your viewing enjoyment. Improvement is about involvement and engagement of the team, and teambuilding… Continue reading
Dan Rockwell started his post today with, “Got a minute” and how that could turn into a significant time investment for managers, since it could help them focus on what is wrong and… 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
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
My associates in Japan changed their company name to “Work Happiness” and have been going gangbusters with their overall growth in services. My initial thoughts were it was too fluffy a company name… 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
Another little haiku on the LEGO images and my theme of implementing round wheels on a Square Wheel wagon. The idea is that continuous improvement and intrinsic motivation come from people making small… Continue reading
Behavior changes in accordance with the individual’s tolerance and perceptions about risk as well as the level of support and trust they feel is around them. Celebrating success is a key factor in… 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
There are tons of articles about time management and personal improvement and managing and leading people and personal growth and improvement. But who has the time? A mention of something in the LinkedIn… Continue reading
In reading a post in a long thread about how to build teams for organizational growth in a LinkedIn discussion group for HR people, I continue to be struck by the seeming reality… Continue reading
What do you think the reaction will be to this request? Consideration? Engagement? Or are we just too busy doing things the same way we have always done things… Who has the time… Continue reading
Here is a simple thought about People and Performance. I do NOT see the workplace as all that difficult to change I do NOT see the workplace needing all that leadership complexity that… Continue reading
People and Performance have been the focus of my efforts since 1978, working on behavioral engineering kinds of consulting and then moving toward customer service quality improvement and then teamwork, innovation and leadership.… 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
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’ve been playing with line-art illustrations using Square Wheels since 1993 and have about 300 different cartoons that depict various aspects of how things really work. You can find out about those tools… Continue reading
Let me illustrate my thinking on issues of corporate performance, innovation, teamwork and the basic issue of alignment, since I think that some people get this wrong. Let me take a really simple… 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 was writing to a colleague about engagement and the workplace and had that sparkle of inspiration about how things really work. So, here are two versions of the same idea, one using… Continue reading
Not always do leaders embrace change and improvement. Consider the case where the team finally begins to get things rolling downhill. This one is the basic theme of my series on, Nobody Ever… 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
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
There is a good story about cognitive science that is more about managing monkeys and dealing with un-engagement that I wanted to pop up in here: So, if you think that the basic… Continue reading
I put up a longer blog post you can find it you click on the image below, but here is the quip part of that message relating to: From Frank Herbert’s Dune book,… Continue reading
Yep. The process is not a hard one. And it needs to be done to impact engagement and motivation. Click on the image below to go to a simple blog post and some… Continue reading
Hope you like this little ditty. Hats off to the Cat in the Hat guy… The Square Wheels theme is one of possibilities, but if nothing changes, nothing improves. So, the situation rhymes… 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
Here is another thought on Spectator Sheep and an addendum: Understand that Spectator Sheep may not appear as they really are: Yeah, they can choose to be involved if they choose. But often… Continue reading
Spectator Sheep? Yep. In any organization, you can find them hanging around on the hillside: And thus, the limerick: Ya like that? See some writings on Spectator Sheep and engagement by clicking on… Continue reading
The “Go” for “Green” continue with number 5 of our 6 Spring Forward business haiku featuring Square Wheels One. What are your reactions to this one: Not just springing forward but making The… Continue reading
