Some individuals are thrust on to a big stage and summon the strength to lead others through perilous times. For the rest of us, we are faced with almost daily opportunities to step-up and lead on the small stage. Some look the other way and others summon the strength from somewhere inside themselves to do the right thing.
When your usual positive attitude takes a holiday and leaves you alone with your grumpier more cynical self, it’s time for action. And while the idea of turning in your resignation after telling off the higher-ups is a nice fantasy, it’s placing the blame squarely where it doesn’t belong. Instead, try this simple but powerful hack to bring your positive attitude back to life:
Imagine there was a tool at your disposal that would help reinforce in real-time the behaviors of group members that moved the performance numbers in the right direction. Or, a tool that would get people motivated to learn, grow, and leave behind less-than-ideal behaviors in favor of new approaches and continuous improvement. Wouldn’t this be helpful? Well, there is. It’s called performance feedback. And sadly, it’s often missing-in-action, misapplied, or, applied inconsistently, and that’s just leaving money and morale on the table.
We have all become unwitting participants in a massive unregulated social experiment. For a little over a decade, we have forced ourselves to evolve from beings who communicate face-to-face, to beings who spend a significant portion of our work and personal lives communicating virtually. What’s to be done? There is no single cure. Instead, we need to learn a new language of emotion, one that begins to replace the human intent that’s left out of the virtual conversation.
It's a great vote of confidence when your boss picks you to lead the turnaround of a struggling team or function. You're the management fixer, charged with figuring out what's not working and how to fix it. And while this is a great career opportunity, there are a number of ways you can misfire in this role. This article offers 7 hard won ideas to help you make the best of a team or function turnaround opportunity.
For individuals involved in the world of design and design thinking, reframing vexing problems is a standard part of the process. For the rest of us, a bit of design thinking focused on reframing is invaluable in our daily labors. Here are some ideas to help you jump-start your reframing activities in pursuit of better solutions in the workplace:
Almost every professional navigates periods of extreme busyness. However, when the workload turns into perpetual overload, motivation flies out the window and productivity and quality (not to mention enjoyment) disappear. In this article, we look at the primary causes of workplace overload and offer some ideas for you to regain control.
We spend a great deal of time in our organizations striving to reduce risk and uncertainty. For some tasks that's possible, but for the big issues of strategies and market forces, it's impossible to bend behaviors and responses to fit our scripts. Effective leaders understand they must build teams that recognize uncertainty as opportunity and live to excel in those moments.
The work of developing new managers and setting them up to emerge as our future leaders is mission critical. I've devoted much of my career to this good work and am excited to launch First-Time Managers Academy—a new approach for this important cause.
When evaluating individuals for advancement into management roles, I prioritize character over knowledge, skills, and abilities. The latter are developed with coaching and training, however, by the time they get to you, it's too late to teach character.
