By Jeffrey Ford, on June 6th, 2011
If you want to increase your personal leadership effectiveness, then you may want to adopt the following policy: It doesn’t exist if it isn’t written down.
Most people are familiar with the cliché “out of sight, out of mind”. One way to interpret this cliché is that if we don’t have some way of remembering things
Continue reading It Doesn’t Exist If It Isn’t Written Down
By Jeffrey Ford, on December 17th, 2010
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
By Jeffrey Ford, on April 19th, 2010
When it comes to improving productivity, our own or others, we frequently look to such things as motivation, commitment, leadership, incentives and rewards, and various other factors (obstacles?) for the answers. You know, I would be more productive if I was more motivated or committed, or if there was better leadership, or if the incentives
Continue reading On Building Infrastructure
By Jeffrey Ford, on January 13th, 2010
A former Mastery of Execution student sent me the link to a great blog article posted by Fast Company entitled “2010: The Year of Saying ‘I Got It’ “. The focus of the article, written by Lynette Chiang, is how companies, as well as individuals, have gotten into the habit of not responding to inquiries
Continue reading Not Responding Can Cost You
By Jeffrey Ford, on January 11th, 2010
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
Continue reading What the Absence of Accountability Sounds Like
By Jeffrey Ford, on December 4th, 2009
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
By Jeffrey, on October 9th, 2009
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
By Jeffrey, on October 1st, 2009
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
By Jeffrey, on September 14th, 2009
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
By Jeffrey, on September 10th, 2009
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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