OKRs are a powerful goal-setting and leadership tool for communicating strategic priorities and the milestones you’ll need accomplish. When smartly paired with performance management systems, this can be a powerful alignment tool. Yet there are some critical mistakes that are too often ignored.
Category Archives: Communication
If you come to me with a problem, make sure you’ve thought of a solution!
Leaders often struggle with feeling of being overwhelmed by day-to-day issues and “getting stuck in the weeds.” In particular, front-line supervisors or managers often find themselves spending more time than they’d like solving problems that they believe others should be able to solve. The problem is that this dynamic takes time away from planning, beingContinue reading “If you come to me with a problem, make sure you’ve thought of a solution!”
What’s your “Man on the moon”?
I’ve spent the last few weeks working with an Accounting Team at an energy company. We’ve spent some time discussing vision and purpose. During our conversations, I was reminded of the old story of the journalist who visited NASA in the 60’s, who was writing about the space program and the growing organization. As theContinue reading “What’s your “Man on the moon”?”
What the Holacracy?
A couple of weeks ago, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, sent the following memo to all of his employees. In this lengthy email, Hseih outlined his strategy for growing the business through Holocracy, an approach to organizational governance where decision-making, authority, and structure are distributed throughout the organization instead of being housed or owned byContinue reading “What the Holacracy?”
Leadership and the Seahawks
People seem to either love or hate the Seahawks. Regardless of your thoughts about the team, their coach Peter Carroll’s approach to leadership is unique in the NFL. I just read a really insightful article about the Carroll’s leadership style: Pete Carroll’s road to redemption leads Seahawks back to SuperBowl, shot at history. A coupleContinue reading “Leadership and the Seahawks”
Why Brainstorming Makes Us Dumber
“Let’s start by brainstorming.” “First we are going to brainstorm to get all the ideas out on the table.” “In brainstorming, there are no bad ideas–we are just going to get the ideas out there without comment, discussion or judgement.” Brainstorming–a long used tool, to generate new ideas without critique, judgement or filtering, has beenContinue reading “Why Brainstorming Makes Us Dumber”
FOMO and emails
How soon do you expect others (or yourself) to respond to email? Social media, email, texting, IM, and all the other tools that are relatively new forms of communication (most, within the last 10-15 years) promote this deep seated fear of missing out (FOMO), which drives us to not only check all our sources ofContinue reading “FOMO and emails”
Do you really know what you really want?
Earlier today I finished up a communication workshop with a great client, @AgStar, and was struck by one key point of the workshop that received a lot of attention. The first thing you must do, when engaging in a critical, crucial, difficult, significant…conversation is clarify what you really want. Not what you are acting likeContinue reading “Do you really know what you really want?”
If you are not sick and tired of communicating, you aren’t communicating enough.
Leading Change Not too long ago I had ACL surgery. While going through the process I had the opportunity to consider the similarities between my experience with the doctor, and many people’s experience with change in their organizations. My knee doctor is great at what he does—he’s the head physician for the US Snowboard TeamContinue reading “If you are not sick and tired of communicating, you aren’t communicating enough.”
Inciting Leaders 