22

Nov

Do You Need to Protect Your People?

3coze

cross-functional, culture, feedback, performance management, Poor performance, project management, protection, protective

Be a better team leader, Right Words to Say

“I’m very protective of my people.” That’s a line I heard last week from an executive addressing the question of whether it’s ok for members of the executive team to give feedback to one another’s direct reports. What do you think? Is it necessary to “protect” your people? What would be the necessary ground rules for you to be willing to let your peers give feedback directly to your team? Hmmm… fun questions!

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04

Mar

The Value of Struggle

2 comments

3coze

conflict, cross-functional, culture, project management, self-reliance, success theatre, vulnerability

Bad Leaders, Connect, Horror Stories

In last week’s post, I talked about the risk of creating a “success theater” in your organization. The term had come from a Wall Street Journal article about General Electric and their culture of sharing only good news. This topic continued top of mind for me and I really wanted to understand why I found […]

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10

Dec

Should you mind your own business?

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3coze

conflict, conflict debt, culture, engagement, Harvey Weinstein, passive-aggressive, teamwork

Be a better team member, conflict

We’re not having enough conflict. We need more conflict to trigger innovation, mitigate risks, surface issues that could erode trust, and to advocate for ourselves. Although you know intellectually that working through the conflict is important, the voices inside your head give you so many reasons why you should avoid it. One of those voices […]

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12

Mar

I’m Launching a New Project

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3coze

culture, engagement, instagram, leah fessler, quartz

Announcements

I’m excited to share that I’m launching a new Instagram account Spotted.at.Work to capture in photos the ideas I talk about here on the blog. Seems a bit random, I know. Let me tell you how it all got started. Leah Fessler interviewed me last week for an article in Quartz. Leah had stumbled across […]

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15

Jan

Exercise: If we really meant it…

1 comment

3coze

behavior, culture, exercises, organizational support, values

Contribute, Exercises

How would you behave if you really meant the things that it says on the plaque on the wall? That’s the question I posed to a group of senior leaders in a high growth organization yesterday. The conversation was part of a program to define their cultural identity after bringing together multiple legacy organizations. It’s […]

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28

Feb

How to give feedback to someone who doesn’t report to you

3 comments

3coze

culture, feedback, guidelines, silos, transformation, trust

Be a better team leader, Contribute, Right Words to Say

Most of the companies I have worked with have, at some point, stuck the word “one” in front of their company name and heralded it as a great new era. “We are now One Acme!” [Cue the trumpets and unfurl the banners.] To be fair, these efforts were in reaction to ever-deepening trenches between teams, […]

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08

Feb

Mistakes team leaders make: Culture of fear

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liane

anxiety, culture, fear, manager, reprisal, risk, team leader

Be a better team leader, Communicate, Horror Stories, Personal Development

  I was having lunch with a friend this week and talking about raising kids.  My friend said something that really stuck with me.  She said she could already see the fears and anxieties she had passed on to her kids: evidence of her own insecurities reflected in them.  She was now in the midst […]

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19

Nov

Are we having fun yet?

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liane

airport security, attitude, culture, happiness, Nursing, positivity, resilience, stress, work climate

Be a better team member, Personal Development, Success Stories

I don’t think we’re having fun anymore. We’re rushed, stressed, harried, tense, bitter, grumpy, tired… we’re a lot of things, but happy is seldom one of them. I think it’s time to choose to be happy; to have fun in the face of stress; and to be buoyant just when you feel like you’re sinking. […]

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26

Jan

Excellence is character first, culture second, competence third

1 comment

liane

bronze medal, building teams, character, competence, culture, excellence, high performance, John Herdman, Olympic athletes, soccer

About teams, Be a better team leader, Be a better team member, Interviews, Success Stories

This post is inspired by my recent interview with Canadian Olympic Women’s Soccer coach John Herdman.   John and I will be among the speakers at the upcoming XL Leadership Summit this February in Vancouver.  I’m so glad we got the conversation going early. I was wowed by John’s thoroughly modern view of leadership and teams—it […]

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