What Name Tag Will He Wear

How do you synchronize work when you can’t talk to each other?  What allows people to know who you are and what you are accountable for if you can’t tell them?  One way is through the use of “signage” which refers to the use of any kind of visual graphic created to display information to

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How Do I Get My Boss to Change?

I am occasionally asked by the managers in my classes, “How do I get my boss to do this stuff?”  My answer is often the same, “Get interested in what they are interested in.  Find out what they have their attention on, what they are concerned for, and what they are accountable for and then

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Improving Relationships at Work

I recently had the working managers in my MBA class on execution (as in implementation, not hanging) undertake an exercise to improve relationships with the people with whom they work.  In particular, we were interested in whether or not they could improve their affinity (liking) for people they currently did not like very much.  They

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The Two Sides to Getting “More Accountability”

Have you ever heard someone say, “What we need around here is more accountability”?  If so, you are in good company because accountability, how to get it, and why people don’t have more of it is a popular topic in today’s workplace.

I encounter this complaint from the managers in my MBA classes as well as

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What the Absence of Accountability Sounds Like

I have been doing some research in preparation for a workshop on personal accountability a colleague and I are doing for MBA’s at the Fisher College.  As I have been getting into it, I am beginning to notice more about what the absence of accountability sounds like when people talk.  Consider the following example.

The other

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Convert Expectations into Agreements

Don’t risk being held to account for things you don’t know about. Take the time to find out what people really expect you to do, and what they expect you to deliver.  If they don’t tell you, ask.

I recently had a conversation with a manager who was disturbed by her inability to meet the

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“High Priority” Isn’t A Deadline

Laurie and I recently conducted a training program on The Four Conversations for a group of project managers.  Since most of the managers were from the same organization, they all encountered the same problem when given an assignment.  Rather than being told a due date or deadline by when the assignment was to be completed,

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The Fundamental Error in Managing Others

While flying home from a weekend visit with my son in Houston, Texas, I got a flash of insight into why it is so difficult to train managers to be more effective.  I was reading “The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making” when I realized managers make a fundamental error in their understanding of what

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Incentives Don’t Work? Part II

If you read my earlier post on Incentives Don’t Work, then you know that Dan Pink’s TED video raises some interesting questions about incentives.  In particular, he raises questions about the role of external incentives and their impact on non-routine, creative, or innovative work performance.  His point is well made.  Research has long known that

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Motivating Others Is Easy IF You Stop Trying To

On September 29, I started my MBA class on Leading and Managing Change in Organizations.  Unlike my prior classes, this is a mix of working professional and fulltime students.  One of the questions I asked them was “What’s important to you?  What do you really want out of this class?”

Although there were a variety of

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