The desire to find and obtain meaning in one’s life is a primary human driver. This premise, famously discussed in Viktor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning, has also been borne out in numerous employee engagement studies. “Meaningful work” or “Understanding how work contributes to the organization” is often among the key drivers of employee engagement. …
In the past couple of years I’ve begun to notice a small, subtle change in the way some people are talking. Small is good. In reality it’s not that new. In college I remember reading a book by E.F. Schumacher called “Small is beautiful, economics as if people mattered”. As the title suggests Schumacher builds …
I was once coaching a nurse in a hospital. She commented that her unit was very inhospitable. The residents and interns would walk right by without even making eye contact or saying hello. She had tried greeting them, smiling, and nearly walking right into them. Despite these efforts, she still received no acknowledgment from the …
I had a reminder of an old lesson today. While it is not a major revelation about leadership, it bears repeating since it seems to crop up over and over again. The lesson: verify the results of an analysis against common sense. If it doesn’t jibe, first check the numbers then check your “sense”. Today, …
Many leaders assemble information. Good leaders synthesize it. There is an important difference. Assembly is about packaging. Synthesis is about extracting something new. Here is an example. Joe wants to propose a new supply chain management process for his organization. He has his team run analyses on inventory control, procurement costs, manufacturing times, and warehouse …
A lot of time and effort go into developing goals and metrics. That’s a good thing. Metrics should be taken seriously. They should help leaders know when to take action. Yet, some metrics are hard to apply on a day-to-day basis. That’s why in addition to my formal metrics, I always include one informal one: …
I tried wall climbing for the first time today. It’s a great workout. Going up and down the walls also provided me with some great lessons that can be applied to leadership. It’s good to have a plan. It’s hard to “wing” it when you are travelling up a wall. If you don’t know your …
Is it possible for your people to hit their goals and yet still decrease your organization’s performance? You might be surprised at the answer. I’ve seen many organizations where individuals get so focused on executing their part of a process that they lose the forest for the trees. A recent experience with my insurance company …
Coaching others is one of your primarily jobs as a leader. Good leaders make the people around them more successful. There are three filters through which a coach should view his or her interactions with others: Confidant, Contextualizer, and Curmudgeon. The ConfidantThe confidant uses personal information to help an individual be more successful. The confidant …
Read more “The three “people” that every coach should bring to a meeting”
My nine year old daughter and I spent a lot of time swimming over vacation. One day we went into the deep end of the pool. She said that she wanted to try to touch the bottom with her hand. She is a pretty good swimmer but is still learning about how much breath she …