Thinking: Beliefs versus Actual Creativity
Most of us are creative and innovative when it comes to solving problems, we really are. But it would also appear that most of us go through a phase where we lose that… Continue reading
Tag Archive: Dr. Scott Simmerman
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I’m Thinking Thoughts on Motivation and Improvement
Thinking. A good idea for most managers. Perspective. A good thing for most managers. Engagement. A good process for most employees. Improvement. A good accomplishment for most organizations. Implementation. A difficult task for… Continue reading
Santa, Square Wheels, LEGO and Issues of People and Performance
I got the Santa Creator Set from LEGO and started messing around with my Square Wheels representation of how things really work in most organizations. After all, should Santa’s be expected to operate… Continue reading
Haiku of Business Improvement – Square Wheels
As leaders and motivators of others, we need to continually celebrate success as well as look to the future for contininuous continuous improvement. A feeling of success is a critical factor in the… Continue reading
The Boss, Thinking and Missing; A Dr. Seuss style poem
Thought you might like this little glimpse of organizational reality, but here is my LEGO version of how things really work in most organizations along with a Dr. Seuss-style poem of the commonplace… Continue reading
Dr. Seuss-Style Thanksgiving Poem on Thinking and Being Great
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
A Poem on Thanksgiving Communications and Success
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
Mechanistic Operations: What’s wrong with THAT picture?
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
It’s not the destination, it’s The Journey: A LEGO Square Wheels Poster
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
Teamwork? Why is this called TEAMwork?
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
Motivation, Peer Support and Engagement – A LEGO Poster
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
Greatness and Leadership – Inspiring and Motivating
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
Progress: The Illusion of it
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
Working and The Living Dead
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
Square Wheels LEGO Dr. Seuss Poem on Leadership
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
Agile Workplace Practices – A Reality
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
Innovation: Continuous Continuous Improvement with LEGO and Square Wheels
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
Peter Drucker Quote and a LEGO Square Wheels post on Management
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
Thinking about Leadership – Simple Considered Alternatives
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
Yes, you CAN be a more engaging leader of teams
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
Decision Making with Devil’s Advocate
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
Simple Thought on Good Strategic Planning
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
Behaving Engaging – a LEGO Square Wheels Poster
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
Don’t Think about Innovation. Don’t think about Elephants.
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
Think Working Hard is Making Progress?
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
Creativity, Courage and Time – Keys to Implementing Improvements
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
A Square Wheels LEGO Haiku on Fear and Change
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
A Square Wheels LEGO Haiku Poem – On Courage and Change
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
REPETITION: LEGO Square Wheels Poster on Doing Things Repeatedly
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
Stupidly Simple Engagement
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
LEGO Square Wheels of Continuous Improvement: Hey, Boss!
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
Poster on Making Progress and Innovation in the workplace
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
Round Wheels ARE Something Better
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
Celebrate Poster – A Square Wheels LEGO poster about getting back to work
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
“Got A Minute?” – Take a Perspective Innovation Break
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
LOOKING for Change, A Change of Perspective
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
Trust and Isolation – Not Building Teams
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
Trust is the Residue of Promises Fulfilled – A LEGO Poster
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
THE REALITY OF CHANGE – A Square Wheels LEGO Poster
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
COACHING? Who Needs Coaching! We have WORK to do.
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
Strategy – Connecting The Vision with The Reality
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
WORKPLACE HAPPINESS: A Square Wheels Poster on Motivation and Improvement
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
ISOLATION – A Square Wheels LEGO Poster on Motivation
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
Devil’s Advocate – a Square Wheels LEGO Poster about decision-making
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
Workplace Alignment – Good and Better: A Business Haiku
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
Business Haiku – Square Wheels Fine, Faster, Good
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
Trust. Discontent. A Square Wheels LEGO Business Haiku
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
Trust – A Business Haiku of Square Wheels and LEGO
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
LEGO Business Haiku of Square Wheels Alternative
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
Team Celebration – A LEGO Square Wheels Poster
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