I was reviewing a curriculum on courage for a friend, and while reading, a question began to form in my mind. Why do we need to teach courage in the first place? The great Japanese swordsman Musashi Miyamoto is claimed to have said, If you are trying to figure out how to counter your opponents first move, you have already lost. In other words, if we need to teach people how to be courageous in the workplace (and we do!), we have already failed. We are trying to fight bad leadership in our organizations with courage. To win, we must defeat bad leadership, not the results of it.
A student in class the other night asked how to go about developing your team. Now, this may come as a shock to some of you, but the best way to develop your dream team, is to let go the non-performers. Ouch.
People will develop at their own pace. Odds are that not everyone on your team is ready to become a high performer. You have three choices:
Make a project of the non-performers
Establish reasonable expectations and let those go who don’t meet them
Do nothing
Your Dream Team will evolve as you get high performers on your team. The wake up call…
Not everyone on your team is a high performer!
Leadership takes guts. Do the right thing by establishing high standards and holding people to them. Don’t be a task master though. Be reasonable. So, set the standard, monitor people’s progress towards it and let those go who don’t want to get on board.
I was teaching a project management class last night and the topic of “Best Practices” came up. Some of the students wanted to know if I could use some of these during class. They were surprised when I told them no. I don’t believe in Best Practices.
Greetings Leaders, Project Managers and Future Project Managers….
I had a colleague ask me for some advice the other day. He is a supervisor, acting as a project manager and he doesn’t like it. Most of the projects he manages are fairly small and he spends most of his time chasing paperwork and going to meetings. He was bored and frustrated and wanted to know if all project managers worked like this.
I finally went to see Avatar yesterday. I enjoyed the movie, the special effects were awesome. The acting and casting were good. The story line however, frustrated me. As I sat through the movie I couldn’t help but think of Pocahontas, The Lions King and Titanic (I guess it was the music score at some points). Why was this frustrating? Because it’s the same old story. Corporate greed run amuck. The local natives getting run over, then responding with violence of their own to win their freedom. While I know James Cameron’s intention was to make a lot of money himself, I was disappointed that he wasn’t able to use the grand stage as the best grossing film ever, to help us make a change. Is this man’s legacy? To continually fight each other to get what we want?
Instilling loyalty in your employees, staff or team is a must if you want to be successful over the long term. Just like you, I’ve had my challenges with this over the years. Here are some tips that I’ve put together to help you develop loyalty.
I was driving to my favorite Starbucks this morning when I heard a short story on the number of measures that might be on the ballot this coming year in California. There are about 80 measures that special interest groups are promoting, and to get the measures on the ballot they each have to get 433,971 verified signatures of registered voters.
Debra Bowen, California’s Secretary of State, is urging caution on the voters when it comes to signing these ballots. She said that no one should be pressured into signing something they don’t agree with and that voters need to ensure they understand what they are signing before signing a petition. So far… so good.
I then cringed when Debra gave suggestions on how to avoid people who are trying to get your signature when you don’t want to give it. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re facing some interesting times. It seems the country is split almost evenly over the health care debate. One thing is for certain, we are heading for a cliff and I imagine it this way. A teenager borrows his Dad’s car. It has a full tank of gas and carries the promise of a good time that night. As the teen drives around town, he starts picking up his friends. In spite of being told to limit his passengers to the number of seat belts, he ends up with almost 10 friends crammed into his five seater.
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