Daylight Savings Haiku – Two of Six
Here is another business haiku about Daylight Savings Time from the brown side of things: Similar to post One, this one supports that we continue to work through the haze of work. Can… Continue reading
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Daylight Savings Haiku – One of Six
Do you like the basic idea? A winter of work with no possibility of a Spring Forward. Can we really continue to do the same things the same way? Click on the image… Continue reading
Square Wheels are everyday tools for engagement and performance improvement
One of the things that becomes more and more apparent is that the metaphor of “Square Wheels” can be everyday language of performance improvement. Things that are “Square Wheels” are simply the things… Continue reading
Is Daylight Savings the Time for Change?
I did 6 business haiku around Square Wheels and change and thought to pop one of them up here. I actually will put all 6 up as a poll to see which one… Continue reading
On Possibilities and Reframing
Here is access to a pdf file that contains some of my ideas on involving and engaging people for improving workplace performance. I wrote it up as a guest blog for a friend… Continue reading
More Thoughts on Intrinsic Motivation – a poem
That first little cute poem led me to making a bigger longer and maybe better poem around people, performance, innovation and improvement. So, we have something that looks like this: Innovation comes from… Continue reading
Thoughts on Intrinsic Motivation – a poem
Here is a cute one about motivation that comes from continuous improvement: Sure can be fun out there! See our toolkit on Manager as Motivator, a Square Wheels-based training package For the FUN… Continue reading
The Moose Joke – The best session closing story of Scott Simmerman
This is not a poem or a quip but it is the best closing storyline out there for a workshop. I say this after attending a whole big bunch of sessions for training… Continue reading
Positively Positive Potential Performance – A Square Wheels Model
By stepping back from the wagon, we can see things differently. If we can get the team to step back and look for issues and opportunities, they will see these. They can then… Continue reading
Intrinsic Motivation – Business Haiku and Square Wheels
Here are two nice haiku around the issue of the value of making changes to improve your workplace and the gratification that comes from making such changes. DO note that the change may… Continue reading
Possible Potential Possibilities and Continuous Continuous Improvement Haiku
In a collaboration, I generated this, which I like as a quote to stimulate thinking: The round wheels are already in the wagon! Click on the image above to go to the other… Continue reading
Intrinsic Motivation
It is easy to motivate me. Just let me stop pushing and see. The wheels can roll smoothly and fast if we can just kick the boss in the (back) The ideas are… Continue reading
More Better Faster: Square Wheels, Round Wheels and Intrinsic Motivation
We roll forward. Thumping and bumping. But then, things stop and we all gather to share issues and ideas and thoughts about what we might do differently. The result is that we choose… Continue reading
Business Haiku – the fun continues…
With the thought in mind that a few people see my poems as somewhat negative, as they frame this in their own thinking and project onto the cartoons, let me offer up a… Continue reading
Business Haiku and Poems Compendium in Slideshare
Uploaded into Slideshare is a compendium of some thinking on Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly and managing and leading change, something that I have been working on for 20 years. The slideshare contains… Continue reading
Business Haiku – Square Wheels and Customer Service
I commonly and often say, “The Square Wheels are everywhere…” when it comes to happenings around customer service. Example from yesterday: I called my insurance company and asked for a report to be… Continue reading
Business Haiku with Square Wheels – The Journey Forward
Making progress in any initiative is taking steps forward. Often, it is about working with others and being led on the journey. One often needs peer support, good systems and processes to manage… Continue reading
Business Haiku – A New Day of Possibilities
It’s the dawn of a new day and one arises thinking that new ways of getting things done just might be possible: And we all know the importance of communicating about ideas for… Continue reading
Business Haiku – Some Square Wheels One illustrations
It is just so easy to do haiku with the image of the Square Wheels wagon, since it generates so many irrational thoughts about the reality of the journey, the difficulty of the… Continue reading
The View at the Front of the Wagon – a Business Haiku
The Square Wheels wagon rolls forward. Not smoothly, but it rolls… There are all sorts of issues and frameworks and anchors to how things really work, but this one should help explain a… Continue reading
Business Haiku – Two cartoons on teamwork
Teams and teamwork and team building. A pretty funny thing that seems so simple but that involves so many bits and pieces. Teams want to form naturally. Put a group of four or… Continue reading
Business Haiku – The Rat Cage of Working
It IS a rat race at times, although one seldom hears those words these days. Rat Race. Guess it is partly because people don’t watch rats race much any more and horses and… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Anger and Ideas for Improvement
Finally, enough was enough and the performers found that the pin had actually HIT the balloon and all things went “POP!” That happens, you know. But I guess the good news is that… Continue reading
Business Haiku on Mentoring and Transformation
The painter sees a different reality than what presently exists. It is a caterpillar no longer in thought. You can read a LOT more about Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly by clicking on… Continue reading
Square Wheels Haiku – Thoughts and an image on Improvement
I started doing a whole big bunch of haiku poems for business process improvement. This is one of the first. I’m having fun with these. And if you want to embellish or improve,… Continue reading
In The Beginning – A Classic on Missions and Visions
At least 25 years ago, I came across this. Never did see a source. But it is an obvious classic insofar as how it describes how things really work in large organizations. I… Continue reading
On Speaking with Conviction – a funny bit from Taylor Mali
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
50 Feet Farther than Last Year – a poem
Here is another ditty about work and working, along with connections to how I use the metaphor of 50 feet along with the telling of my Moose Joke: My Moose Joke uses this… Continue reading
The Chaos of Strategy Implementation, a poem
My colleagues talking about strategy implementation got me thinking about how I often see the reality of cascading a strategy from the top down through the levels of management to implement new ideas… Continue reading
Puppies. Square Wheels and Intrinsic Motivation to Implement Improvement
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
Poems about Puppies, Square Wheels and Performance Improvement
I continue to play with the puppies. They are just such cute things. But the linking of puppies back to the performance improvement of the pushers and puller continues to be a difficult… Continue reading
Puppies and Performance
Okay – the basic and simple question is this: Would people care more about improving how the wagon rolls if the cargo were a load of cute puppies? Inquiring minds want a discussion… Continue reading
Change and Improvement – a poem on butterflies
Creating butterflies in your workplace would seem to be a lot better than simply supporting the lifestyle of the caterpillars. The related thought is that caterpillars are a lot easier to manage. Is… Continue reading
Square Wheels DO Roll!
Yes, the Square Wheels do roll both forward and backward and just may be more useful than round wheels when descending very steep hills or for helicopters or cooking hot dogs. But for… Continue reading
People and Potential – Releasing the Butterfly
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
It is a Butterfly yet?
So much of our life is about potential, both having it as well as helping others achieve theirs. As part of that, here is another post on the theme of caterpillars and butterflies… Continue reading
Caterpillars and Butterflies and Change and Potential
For the past few weeks, I have been playing with my illustrations and pictures and the themes of managing and leading change and improvement. So much of it has to do with unrealized… Continue reading
Square Wheels, Caterpillars and Butterflies — It is about the flight!
What is it about caterpillars? Is it because they are so grounded? And what it is about the butterfly — why are they often so attractive? A lot of it seems to be… Continue reading
Caterpillars can fly – a quote by Scott Simmerman
One of my most favorite quotes about change, visions, potential and style: Managers can fly more better faster if they just look at their styles and see the opportunities for better involvement and… Continue reading
Butterflies and Change – A Quote about Less and More
This is about potential. After all, caterpillars do make the transition to butterflies and it is about potential. It is also about accepting change and becoming more and better. Change is what we… Continue reading
Square Wheels – Dream to Fly
This is about people and performance, about dreaming of possibilities and it is about the reality of improvement. Dream to Fly! For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of… Continue reading
Choices, Teamwork and Destiny
I was reading some quotes and saw a quote by Emerson that I thought to reframe around teamwork and the choices we make. Again, I will anchor it to my Square Wheels model… Continue reading
Making the Workplace FUN!
Motivation and engagement are two critical factors for workplace improvement. So, I ask you, “What’s wrong with this picture of how things really work in most organizations?” What choice have probably been made… Continue reading
On Progress and Improvement – Issues of Choice
On the theme of: “Don’t Just DO Something, Stand There!” we have this kind of thought about choice and choices: So much depends on simply seeing what are called “considered alternatives” instead of… Continue reading
Santa deals with un-engaged and demotivated reindeer.
Every year, Joan does some kind of Christmas Poem around Santa and Square Wheels or Lost Dutchman and this year is no different. It seems like Santa is getting older and losing it… Continue reading
Nobody Ever Washes a Rental Car – Ownership and Involvement
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
Don’t Just DO Something, Stand There!
I posted up a comment on a magazine article about a friend’s blog and it reminded me of a cartoon and a poem that I have not used in a while. The issue… Continue reading
The Basic Reality of People and Performance – An illustration
I read a Zig Ziglar quote “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” and it got me thinking that I can do something similar with the cartoons. So, I… Continue reading
Thanksgiving and teamwork, poems and cartoons
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
Trust. Leadership. Engagement. Three Illustrations that demonstrate the issues…
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