Removing Barriers to Collaboration
As facilitators, we help people get perspective and to see and move through apparent inner and outer limitations. During this process, people will sometimes experience emotional reactions as they face challenges in their personal and professional lives. Our conditioning might tempt us to lose ourselves in their dilemma in an attempt to sympathize with them. [...]
It’s inspiring to see the free exchange of ideas among employees; no idea is put down, and no one feels intimidated. It takes years to create and sustain this type of organizational environment. This is the burden of leadership, to help sustain the creative and innovative organizational environment. Creativity is a key part of a [...]
I was giving a seminar on coaching and communication skills when the subject of emotional expression as a professional came up. This group of women who work with parents of children with special needs, are often touched emotionally by their client’s stories. They questioned the appropriateness of expressing their feelings in the work setting. I [...]
Perhaps the shortest correspondence in history occurred in 1862 when author Victor Hugo left on vacation after submitting his manuscript Les Miserables to his publisher. After some time away and wondering how his book was doing, he sent the following letter to his publisher: “?” His publisher replied in kind with: “!” The context I [...]
We hear a lot today about the importance of innovation in our enterprises. We’re called to distinguish ourselves from the background noise of the status quo. Once the majority catch on to the current trend and begin to replicate it, change is required once again. This is the process of evolution at work in the [...]
A few weeks ago, I went on a week-long canoe camping trip with several friends into the Boundary Waters Wilderness area of Northern Minnesota. I’d never gone camping for this long before and never in canoes either. With six people, three canoes, and several hundred pounds of gear, we set up and broke down camp [...]
Groups tend to evolve through a fairly predictable series of stages over time. A very popular model developed by Bruce Tuckman, calls these stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. I also particularly like author Scott Peck’s community building model which refers to these stages as: Pseudo- Community, Chaos, Emptiness, and True Community. Most groups that [...]
I love the Apprentice TV series hosted by Donald Trump. In a recent season, Donald recruited a cast of 18 celebrities, competing against one another on various business tasks. Each week the winning team leader is awarded a sizeable check to donate to their favorite charity. A very interesting thing happened in one episode. In [...]
In order to be a great writer, a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector. –Ernest Hemingway– This quote by Hemingway, as a writer for writers, applies equally well to facilitative leaders. So often we communicate with one another through unspoken assumptions and agendas, often without realizing it. Unconscious assumptions present huge barriers to [...]
There are many ways to make decisions.Sometimes we get stuck using the approach we’ve always used or the only approach we know. And sometimes, we may not even consider how our group make decisions and for that reason, we don’t! The thing is, there are lots of different decision-making models. None of them is the [...]
Recent Comments