It’s finally happened. The unthinkable. The unlikely. The extremely rare! The tyrannical, psychotic bastard (substitute bitch and her as needed) that has been terrorizing employees for years has finally been discovered and removed by his boss. So now what? How do we deal with the wreckage and get everyone back on track? There are unfortunately [...]
Most leaders want to improve their workplace environment. Improve morale, improve productivity, improve profitability, and increase the general success of the organization. Implementing any improvement program requires that you first understand the current state, which in turn requires you to be able to measure the current state. When helping a client establish formal project management [...]
I’ve had the good fortune (or misfortune) to work in a number of dysfunctional unhealthy workplace environments over the course of my career. I say “good fortune” in the context of having the opportunity to experience first hand some of the bad manager behaviors that, in my current career, I try to teach people how [...]
Allowing team members as much control over their work as possible is always a good way to develop intrinsic motivation and improve performance. I recently came across a great story that beautifully illustrates the power of autonomy and participation. I’d like to share this to hopefully inspire some of you try this concept out with [...]
It’s surprising to see how long it takes for an old, bad habit to die out. The resistance to allowing people to work from home is one that we should have been over a long time ago. The knee jerk reaction to this subject is mostly the result of management ideas that are holdovers from [...]
It’s always good to use a great title to lead into an important topic. I first came across this one (the great title) in “Reframing Organizations” by Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal. They in turn were referencing “The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First” by Jeffrey Pfeffer. Regardless of the origin [...]
Most managers aspire to lead a highly motivated, high performing team. The challenge is that many things influence the motivation of a team. In addition, the team is made up of people having individual personalities. Each team member may respond differently to various motivational approaches. One thing that works consistently with many people is autonomy [...]
Something that I used to hear regularly in the workplace was “I didn’t get anything done, I’ve been in meetings all day”. I always found that a little humorous since as mangers or leaders “meetings” are what we do. Still there is a difference between participating in a productive meeting and enduring one that is [...]
One unfortunate reality in the world of project managers is that many of us are responsible for managing multiple projects simultaneously. There are likely a number of reasons why this situation is so common. As is true with many things, there are benefits and costs associated with taking this approach. Today we’ll examine costs and [...]
Have you known people who seem to take forever to get to the point of their conversation? Do you think people have noticed that about you? Don’t panic, you’re ok. We all have general tendencies regarding how we think and communicate. These tendencies are neither good nor bad They are not carved in stone. Understanding [...]
