“Look at your spend” “Free up some cash” We all seem to be hearing a lot of these kinds of statements right now. And they’re mostly understandable. We’re in a strange, new situation for which there’s literally no precedent, and this naturally causes us to be more cautious. As we encounter various flavors of “budget … Read More
Bear with me as I attempt to bring a slightly nerdy concept into relevance this week. I think you’ll see it’s a powerful idea that can help us work in better ways. In technology there’s an idea called “technical debt,” defined in Wikipedia as “a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of … Read More
Nearly every big problem that persists in our organizations today comes from limitations that live in the mindset of the leadership. Bold claim? Maybe, but I think you’ll see it’s true. Let me explain… There are a lot of big, hairy problems in our organizations, ranging from turnover to disengagement to lack of agility and … Read More
At Helios, we have a somewhat-peculiar practice. Every Monday afternoon we get together for our all-hands team check-in, and we start our meeting, every single time, with a single, simple question: “Right now, what are you grateful for (or what are you celebrating)?” We are a virtual team, so we meet on Zoom. Someone starts … Read More
Here’s the CPR interview from Oct 31, if you missed it (~15 mins): Click here to view it on CPR.org // starts around 5:30 mark // And a few follow-up thoughts… When we hear about this whole “self managing teams” thing, it can be easy to get a bit “triggered” by it. We all have … Read More
“I don’t think he’s going to last here much longer.” “She needs so much hand-holding to just do her job!” “Why is it so difficult to get what we need from [that person]?” How many times have you heard questions like these in your workplace? How many times have you said something like this yourself? … Read More
Intellectually, it’s easy to promote the value of diversity in our organizations. We endlessly proclaim pithy sayings about the added benefit of a diverse and varied constituency of employees, espousing the importance of mixing genders, races, generations, and lifestyles. In our minds, we “get it,” and for good reason — it seems almost self-evident that a … Read More
The idea of having “company values” is nothing new. In fact, these days, it’s downright rare to come across an organization without them, even if the organization is very small. But the near-ubiquitousness of company values seems to be equally matched with the unsureness leaders have around how to actually make them useful in practice. … Read More
Culture is complex. By its very definition, “culture” is almost unreasonably complicated — read just a few lines in a dictionary, and you’ll quickly trip over phrases like “manifestations of human achievement regarded collectively.” Oof. Complex. The intricate nature of “culture” itself is actually one of its largest challenges, as its complexity makes it difficult … Read More
It was a morning like most weekday mornings, which is to say everyone in my family was running around trying to get ready to leave the house. And as you may know, some mornings are better than others when it comes to little kids listening versus dawdling — this particular morning was kiddo procrastination in … Read More
Doing “purpose work” in organizations seems to be all the rage right now. And, again, for the most part, this is a great thing. But something has been bothering me about this, so today I’d like to show you exactly how “purpose work” can fail your organization. There are two primary ways this happens: It … Read More
“I just love being micromanaged.” … Have you met a lot of people who would say this? Have you even met one? I’ve been studying leadership and human behavior for the last 20 years, and I struggle to think of a single person I’ve met — ever — who would say they enjoy being micromanaged. Humans, by nature, … Read More