What turns something from a death slog-fest into a life-affirming event? As it turns out, an over-the-top amount of encouragement. In any profession that causes as well as alleviates work pain, we’d do well to remember that. I ran the Black Mountain Marathon a few weeks ago. Beautiful conditions at the start line; it was […]
Team Trust: Leadership Not As Important As You Think?
I thought I’d share something interesting about trust among teams based on research I recently did. Team trust level is something that gets pooh-poohed by those who scorn “touchy feely” stuff, but it’s critical to any real success. Just about every two years, I’ve done research about enterprise project management, and I’ve just gotten back […]
College or Workplace Evaluations: One Size Does Not Fit All
My #2 son procrastinated his college application essays until just two days ago–the very last minute. Why? He’s a math and music guy, not a writer. That’s right: a key evaluation mechanism relies on his Achilles heel. There’s a reason that this sounds like your experience in the workplace; the sad part is that it’s […]
Is Lean Startup The Future of The Workplace?
It’s kind of like an orange juice commercial from the 70s: “Lean Startup: It’s Not Just For Startups Anymore.” Or that’s how it seemed to me on the first day of the Lean Startup Conference. Though many observers, including myself, have urged the adoption of Lean Startup (and startup principles in general) into the workplaces […]
IT and Business Units: Relationship Rescue?
Some months ago, Terri Griffith wrote a blog on HBR asking “are we asking too much of our CIOs?” My answering post on InformationWeek: it’s complicated. “If IT is now accountable for the success of virtually the entire business, why not put IT in charge of the whole business?” Of course, that’s a snarky answer […]
Why Agility Is So Dang Hard
Agility is so hard because people are afraid. The rest is commentary. One great personal example that’s relevant to how we act in our teams and organizations was my fear about relaunching my personal website / blog. Fear was the the hardest thing for me in going from talking about blogging to blogging; it had […]
Some Doors, You Go Through Alone
Today’s run reminded me that there are some doors that you have to go through alone to get what you want. I usually take a 12-15 mile run with a great friend of mine every Sunday morning. For the past three weeks, we’ve both been in various states of “unavailable” — I’ve been traveling, he’s […]