In three sessions with three different teams recently, the key theme has been the lack of shared ownership: A phenomenon one participant described as “everyone swimming their own race.“ This affects the value added by the team in two ways. First, when you’re focused on your own responsibilities, you’re unlikely to provide input on […]
Many of the team members I’m working with right now feel caught between two opposing forces. On the one hand, they’re living in matrix structures that require tightly aligned team behavior and interdependence. On the other hand, they feel the weight of the expectations for personal accountability and speed of execution, which are inadvertently driving […]
In my previous post, I talked about the blight of teams today: the overpowering compulsion to go fast. I’m not delusional and arguing for a return to the leisurely pace of the good old days. I’m just worried that teams that try to go fast actually go slowly. The problem lies in the difference […]
“We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” This is my new favorite quote. A client shared it with me last week. She used it to describe the feeling in the room as the executive team that she is a part of raced to come up with a solution without being aligned on what they […]
Stress…a concept we’re all familiar with these days. Recent studies suggest that 50% of office workers are experiencing significant stress at work. That’s what caused me to write last week’s post on the tsunami of stress. But is all stress bad? Is there good stress? This was a question posed to me by client […]
About the fourth week of August this year, the early warning systems started signaling an oncoming tsunami. Three alarms went off for me. First, my editor at HBR.org asked if I could contribute to their increasingly popular series on stress in the workplace. Second, at the company where I write an employee advice column, […]
Thank you to those of you who have sent notes complaining about the dearth of posts this summer. It’s nice to know that you miss them! It’s been an eventful summer for me and my reaction was to think more and write less. My kids headed back to school Tuesday and our household is […]
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