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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 Continue reading Convert Expectations into Agreements  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, Continue reading “High Priority” Isn’t A Deadline 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 Continue reading The Fundamental Error in Managing Others 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 Continue reading Incentives Don’t Work? Part II One of the frequent excuses I get from managers in my MBA classes for why things don’t get done or don’t work the way they should work is “because there are no incentives”. Why is work late? Because, I am told, there are no incentives for doing it on time. Why are projects late, overbudget, Continue reading Incentives Don’t Work? – Check out this video We are in the network era. Whether it is in the internet, globalization, or even terrorism, we confront the growth and influence of networks. This growth provides managers with an extraordinary opportunity to gain a competitive edge if they are willing to recognize that managing effectively in networks requires a shift in focus from traditional Continue reading A New Era for Managers – Are You Ready? 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 Continue reading Motivating Others Is Easy IF You Stop Trying To Is it possible to build accountability even when you don’t have authority? The case of Myles Brand, president of the NCAA suggests the answer is yes. Myles Brand, who died September 16, 2009, was the former president of Indiana University and Oregon University. Brand left the presidency of Oregon to become president of the NCAA, a Continue reading Building Accountability without Authority Do you ever have trouble getting people to give you what you want when you want it? Do you find yourself explaining things over and over to people with the expectation that if they really understood what you wanted and why, they would give it to you? It could be that you are using the Continue reading Stop Explaining and Start Asking If you want to kill a werewolf, you use a silver bullet. If you want to stop productivity, there are silver bullets that will do that too. To avoid being stopped, know your silver bullets – and make friends with them. Folklore has it that if you want to kill a werewolf, you do it Continue reading Know Your Silver Bullets |
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