Is Your Team Dysfunctional?

In his now classic book, “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team,” Patrick Lencioni lays out the 5 key ways in which teams undermine their effectiveness: 1. Absence of Trust 2. Fear of Conflict 3. Lack of Commitment 4. Avoidance of Accountability 5. Inattention to Results My friend Nathan Lozeron does a great job explaining the…

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Effective Communication: Can You Actually Overcommunicate?

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”  -George Bernard Shaw Business leaders, speakers, and authors often talk about the importance of overcommunicating. I’m not convinced it’s possible. If you think communication is a one-way process of talking at people, then maybe there’s some merit to it. I prefer…

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3 Traits of Every Healthy, High-Performance Organization

Do You Have an (H2O)?: Healthy, High-Performance Organization “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This often-quoted line rings with truth. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good your strategy is. If you don’t have a healthy culture reinforcing your strategy, you’re destined to fail. The most sustainably successful companies have three healthy, high-performance…

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Simply Brilliant

Those two words fit together like a hand in a glove. In a world that is overwhelming complex people are looking for simple, clear, and compelling solutions that work. Modern life is complex. Even a decision about what tooth paste you are going to buy is complex. A typical store carries almost of 200 distinct…

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How new phrasing can lead to new possibilities

Generative language is a powerful thing. Our words can be used to tear down or build up. Think about the possibilities around a simple statement like ”let’s explore some possibilities” or ”what do you need to make that happen?” Compare that to ”that won’t work” or ”you can’t do that.” When it comes unleashing human…

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The Change You Are Looking for Starts With a Conversation

Do Crazy People Drive You Nuts? People do what they do for a good reason, but remember it is for their reasons not yours. Have you ever observed someone else’s behavior and thought, “that person is crazy”? I know I have. The reason their behavior seems crazy to you is because if you were doing the…

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Are You Safe? | Why Trust Is So Important

People do what they do for a good reason, but remember–it is for their reasons and not yours. Are You Safe? There is an overwhelming body of scientific evidence pointing to the importance of trust and psychological safety. Interestingly, Google conducted an extensive study on what makes for effective teams. The study was named after…

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You Can’t Motivate People

Carrots and sticks don’t work. Organizational Psychologists refer to this as extrinsic motivation – motivation that comes from outside of yourself.  The approach is seductive in that it often works in the short run, but is rarely sustainable. As soon as the reward or punishment is removed, the desired behavior disappears. People are hardwired to…

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The Accountability Myth

I frequently hear leaders talk about the difficulty of holding their people accountable. Holding someone accountable is an elusive goal. Even if you can hold someone accountable in any given moment, who has the time, energy and bandwidth to hold someone else accountable on an on-going basis? The only person you can effectively hold accountable…

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If You Want to Be Heard, Shut-up and Listen 

One of my favorite sayings is that Conflict and Communication Rarely Coexist. People don’t generally disagree, they just think they do. The latest findings in neuroscience suggest that when I am trying to convince you of my truth, at a subconscious level the listener hears me saying that they are not as smart as me.…

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