Dave Anderson | Tag Archive | Communication
Good leaders see the need, seize the opportunity, and serve without expecting anything in return. Who wouldn’t want to work for a leader like this? What about working beside people who – SEE, SEIZE and SERVE?
A great team motto would be SEE, SEIZE and SERVE. When I talk to leaders about establishing core values and making them come to life, I often talk about the importance of communicating “What good looks like” to the teams they lead. Continue Reading…
It was a good old knock down, drag out fight. We had chosen our sides and were all vehemently sure of our positions.
In Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he expends 20% of his thesis on the need for healthy conflict on a team. He says, and I believe, that without conflict it is highly unlikely a team is making the best decisions for an organization.
If this is true then by Lencioni’s scorecard, this was going to be a FANTASTIC decision! But, in the midst of it all, I quietly raised my hand and gave in. It was right to give up this fight. Continue Reading…
Do you want a “me first” team? Do you want a team filled with politics and positioning? Do you want a team that does the minimum necessary? Few of us want a work culture like this.
The word culture is derived from the middle English word cultivation. When I work with teams, I see the results of a leader’s cultivation efforts. The good and the bad cultures are a direct result of the efforts or lack of effort from the leader. Continue Reading…
It was one of those meetings. Every time I brought up an issue or an idea, all I got was blank stares or nodding heads. Every time I tried to illicit feedback from my team, I felt as if I were pulling teeth. All I heard was crickets.
When I finally had enough, I looked at my high performing team and said, “You’re all fired!” There was a nervous laugh until they saw my face. I had a stone cold look I learned when I was in the Army. The laughing stopped. Continue Reading…
I know why you said what you said! I know why you did what you did! I am able to diagnose your motives. Because I believe I know your motives, I am sure you are the problem and not something else–like me!
These are all lies. But, they are lies that we easily fall into. I’ve done it. I have been sure of someone’s motives. Have I ever been right? Maybe. Continue Reading…
I started my first team from scratch and it took us over two years to hit our stride. My second team had a mix of experienced and novice members on it. We took about a year to begin to fire on all cylindars. The next team was pieced together from other teams. The individuals were all tenured and successful but most had not worked together before. We hit our stride quickly.
The way a leader launches into leadership with a new team can often determine that team’s trajectory for years to come. Continue Reading…
It’s like a sad Dilbert cartoon. A leader sitting in his office shooting email after email off to people he can see through the glass window of his office. It’s sadder when he has set up a culture on his team that he expects an immediate response to his emails.
Is this a Dilbert cartoon on leadership? Unfortunately it’s not. Over the last few years training and developing frontline leaders from multiple companies and industries, I hear tales about this form of leadership. But it is not really leadership. It is management. Continue Reading…
“That’s not going to work.” Every time my most experienced people said this, I cringed. I had a team with eight veterans and four rookies. I soon realized that our team’s experience was killing innovation.
Each time a veteran spoke, it hurt us or helped us. Experience kept us from moving forward into new territory. At times, experience helped us make wise decisions and other times it kept us from growing. Continue Reading…
The death of a good idea is a tragedy. Many individuals bring forward great ideas only to see them assaulted by three different assassins.
I have watched the assaults and done nothing. Yet, I wondered why my team was stagnating and not moving forward. I was asleep at the wheel.
These assassins were individuals, groups and/or processes. All three were the result of an inattentive leader-me. But once I learned how to identify these assassins, I was able to save some great ideas from the clutches of death. Continue Reading…
I’m an idea guy. I love to brainstorm and come up with ideas on how to make things better. I am also someone who can ignore the details or forget about them quickly.
The more I work with leaders the more I realize I am not alone. All of us have strengths that can also be our weaknesses. They are two sides of the same coin. Our strengths often turn into weaknesses when they are misapplied or taken to an extreme.
Continue Reading…
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