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I recently played golf with someone I didn’t know prior to our playing together. As we walked down the first fairway, he asked, “What do you do?” Asking people what they do is a polite and socially acceptable way of getting to know them. It’s completely normal and completely appropriate. But in the workplace, what Continue reading It’s What You Deliver That Matters  I believe a cornerstone of personal leadership effectiveness is operating with integrity. Michael Jensen, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School contends that without integrity, nothing works. Jensen defines integrity as honoring your word, which means that (1) you keep your word, and (2) just as soon as you Continue reading Where Do You Keep Your Word after You Give It? One of the persistent questions I get from people in my classes and training sessions is “What can I do to motivate people to give me work that is complete, accurate, and on time? I am tired of the excuses.” Fair question, though I think it is misdirected. It attributes the problem to their motivation Continue reading Get Better Results from Other People Being personally accountable goes beyond acknowledging you did or didn’t do something. It also requires owning the outcome (good or bad), doing a realistic examination of how you contributed to it, and coming up with new actions to take and then taking them. I recently had a student tell me he was being personally accountable Continue reading Being Personally Accountability Goes beyond “Owning Up” One reason people experience stress and feel that they have more to do than time in which to do it is because they are in an argument with The First Law of Accomplishment. The First Law of Accomplishment states: “The accomplishment of anything requires a sufficient period of time in which to accomplish it.” Its Continue reading Obeying the First Law of Accomplishment Building accountability requires giving honest feedback on how people perform. If we want people to provide high quality work on time, telling them when they succeed and when they fail at doing so is essential. But providing this feedback is often easier said than done. Accountability Accountability begins when we agree to do something for someone else. Continue reading Accountability Requires Feedback 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 Continue reading What Name Tag Will He Wear? 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 Continue reading How Do I Get My Boss to Change? 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 Continue reading Improving Relationships at Work During a recent meeting with a group of managers from COSI in Columbus, OH, one of them asked about the role of inspired understanding in getting people to do things. She was proposing that the primary difference between effective managers and less effective leaders was that effective leaders presented their ideas in a more compelling Continue reading Inspiration Is Not Enough |
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