30

Nov

Being on the wrong side of a trade-off

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3coze

goals, Objectives, performance management, performance planning, planning, priorities, resources, trade offs

About teams, Be a better team leader, Contribute, Strategy & Planning

If there is one line I hear over and over from the middle layers of management, it’s “what are we going to stop doing?” They are desperate for activities to be removed from their very full plates if new ones are going to be added. Although trade-offs are welcomed by most, it’s a different story […]

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27

Nov

How to stop the cycle of micro-management

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3coze

autonomy, coaching, consequences, delegate, empowerment, micro-management, punishment, quality

Be a better team leader, Be a better team member, Contribute, Horror Stories

The tendency to micro-manage can start in response to someone’s dereliction of duty deep in the organization or it can start at the top with an unhealthy need for control. Regardless of where it starts, micro-management becomes a vicious cycle that quickly reduces the value of everyone involved. I heard a great story that exemplified […]

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22

Nov

Communicate with, not to

3 comments

3coze

communication, emails, interpretation, presentations, resistance, understanding

Be a better team leader, Be a better team member, Communicate, Connect, Personal Development

What percentage of the information you share daily is delivered as one-way messages that you transmit without checking how the message lands? I asked this of an audience recently and most of the people in the room answered 80 percent or higher. How would you answer? It’s a major problem if you’re only communicating to […]

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20

Nov

When conflict gets emotional

8 comments

3coze

anger, conflict management, crying, disagreement, emotion, fight, frustration

Be a better team member, Communicate, conflict, Personal Development, Right Words to Say

I was giving a talk on how to have productive conflict when an audience member asked a great question. She was clear on all the advice and agreed that the techniques I was sharing were great…but! “What if get emotional and I’m no longer in a frame of mind to use these approaches?” She was […]

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16

Nov

The Surprising Source of Most Trust Issues

7 comments

3coze

alignment, conflict, cross-functional, goals, matrix, misalignment, Objectives, targets

Bad Leaders, Be a better team leader, Contribute, Strategy & Planning

When Craig and I are invited to work with a team, it’s common that the client cites trust issues as one of the reasons for engaging us. Although it’s immediately apparent that trust is weak, once we get working with the team, often the trust issues turn out to be the symptom rather than the […]

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13

Nov

Why you should stop pushing back

1 comment

3coze

conflict, disagreement, Micro management, opposition, push back

Be a better team member, Communicate, conflict, Right Words to Say

Recently, I was facilitating a leader forum discussing the importance of leaders adding value at the right level (and avoiding getting sucked into the weeds). One audience member suggested that it was important to “push back” when your manager asks you to get involved in work that’s below the appropriate level. A smart and thoughtful […]

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09

Nov

Are you meeting at the wrong time?

8 comments

3coze

change, energy, management, meetings, relationships, resilience, sleep, tranformation

Be a better team member, How to fix teams

This weekend, I facilitated a workshop about change and transformation with a large group of leaders. Once we finished talking about the perilous task of transforming an organization, we started talking about the importance of leaders investing in their own resilience. I said something that caused a light bulb to go on for many of […]

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06

Nov

Embracing No-vember

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3coze

burnout, busy work, decline, delegate, delete, meetings, resilience, stress, wasted time

Be a better team member, Contribute, Exercises, Personal Development

I stumbled upon an old post I had written for Psychology Today and decided to resurrect and refresh it for ChangeYourTeam. It’s about being inspired in the month of November to say “no” to more things. In the time since I first wrote the post, my concern about people saying “yes” to far too many […]

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