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
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
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
I am re-reading Gareth Morgan’s book on Images of Organizations (1986) and some of his writings on the mechanistic approaches to organizational design got me to think about how things work using my… Continue reading
One of my friends popped me this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that I thought to posterize. So, I took my poster on the theme of ISOLATION and revamped it with the quote.… Continue reading
Every so often, I am simply struck by what some people call team building. I have written extensively in my other blog about things like go-kart racing, golf, bowling, firewalking and other activities… Continue reading
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
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
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
We hear that “agile” is the new way for a lot of organizations, with the goal of thinking in less constrained ways and in ways to enable better responsiveness on the part of… 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
Challenging decisions and assumptions is a critically important role that is often neglected, given organizational cultures like GM where the “GM Nod” is simply the way of escaping any link to accountability or… 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
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
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
I was always told that hard work would generate success. But a simple look around the real world will show one how silly that statement is. It is NOT simply about hard work;… Continue reading
Here is another in the “Courage Series” of Square Wheels LEGO business haiku. This one simply illustrates the need for speed and the requirement that communications is effective for involving and engaging the… 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
Playing with some comments on Dan Rockwell’s blog with talk of courage and change and I thought to pop up a Haiku on the theme. Change is about choice. Without change, little happens.… 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
It has always been my belief that the best ideas for improvement always come from the people who are doing the job and have a hands-on reality of how things work and what… 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
The Round Wheels already exist but most people are aware that we tend to use the Square Wheels more than the round ones… Let’s work to make improvement, For the FUN of… 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
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
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
Frank Navran used this quote 20+ years ago and I have used it ever since: Trust is the residue of promises fulfilled. I think it is really memorable and reinforces the reality that… Continue reading
One of the cartoons I have used for many years is what I called The Reality of Change. In it, one of the Square Wheels wagon wheels is broken and the team is… 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
Disconnects are just so common when it comes to people and performance. And when it comes to implementing strategy, the research says that few initiatives meet the goals and expectations of the senior… 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
I am going to post up a much longer article around the issues of decision-making and the requirement that someone be appointed to a role of simply challenging assumptions. But for the moment,… Continue reading
We talk alignment a good bit, but it is certainly possible to take teamwork and collaboration and add SO much structure that we squeeze deviation and creativity out of the equation. Here is… 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
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
Here is another Business Haiku I thought you might like. It’s about the reality of people working together. It is about environmental awareness of managers, not just their focus on productivity and production.… Continue reading
It’s been a while since I popped up a poem to the poems blog, so here goes a business Haiku I thought you might like. It is about involvement and engagement and perspective… 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
