Have you ever had a meeting that didn’t work out quite as a planned? Where everyone agreed to a specific course of action and two weeks later you discover that what they’ve been working on doesn’t come close to your vision of what should happen? When these situations arise, we usually blame poor communication. We didn’t communicate clearly. People weren’t really listening. We thought we Read More »
A great many startup “experts” now recommend that new entrepreneurs outsource as much of the noncore tasks as possible. The arguments sound logical – leave the work to the professionals; focus on your core competencies; don’t be distracted by accounting/marketing/whatever details. But there are a few problems with this advice that you should be aware of before you send your business out to be handled Read More »
Within each organization is a core group that is chiefly responsible for the success of that organization. That core group might be a working team, an executive committee, or a board of directors. Or it could be an unofficial grouping of people from all three categories, typically consisting of no more than a dozen individuals. In this case, the application of ConnectAbility can be modified Read More »
The hardest part of building an innovative culture in an organization is getting it started. People aren’t sure what they should or can do. If you sit a team around a table and tell them to brainstorm for new ideas they will look around at each other expectantly or look down so they won’t be called on. But seldom will many ideas come from this Read More »
Whether we like it or not, crisis is a fact of life. Many leaders run into turbulent times and while many succumbed to the hardship, a number is lost and overwhelmed by its immense upshot. Handling crisis starts with the recognition that it’s a normal phenomenon. Everyday we are faced with crises of every kind. Some come unexpectedly; others are expected. Some crises are externally Read More »
In most organizations, it’s common practice to conduct “postmortem” or lessons learned review sessions upon completion of major projects. If the project achieved its goal, management questions typically focus on what went right. What did we do well? How can we sustain this success? What could we improve to make the outcome even better?” If the project failed to meet expectations, the postmortem tends to Read More »
Imagine that you have been invited to join a group of people in a room with casual comfortable furniture and with the job of coming up with ideas to solve a problem creatively and with no pressure. Everyone will be listening to everyone else and looking for ways to enhance each others’ ideas and to piggy-back or combine ideas. The combination and diversity of backgrounds Read More »
