I have been blogging now in one form or another for a little less than nine years. I have always blogged for myself, as a learning tool, as much as for an audience. I needed a collaboration partner, to help me figure things out, and I decided that “the internet” was going to be my…
Leadership
Avoid the meeting takeover -part 4
I hope you have enjoyed this little vignette about meeting preparation. I have spent lots of time in meetings. I work in an organization that has a highly collaborative culture, and that leads to lots of in-person face-to-face meetings. Over the years I’ve learned that in order to have effective meetings, there needs to be…
Avoid The Meeting Takeover – Part 3
“That was a really great meeting!”, I told Carolyn as we walked toward the lunch room. “I already see the benefits of your mentor relationship with Jack. In fact, I’m kinda jealous.” “Yeah. Preparation really pays off. Now that I know how, it is so easy.”, Carolyn was smiling. “So it is really easy?”, I…
Avoiding The Meeting Take Over – Part 2
“So did you talk to Jack?” I asked. Carolyn was smiling, “I sure did. He was really helpful. I thought he might reject me.” “And did he give you some useful suggestions?” “He kept asking me questions. It was kind of weird. He wasn’t insulting, or condescending, it was like he expected me to ask…
Avoiding the Meeting Takeover – Part 1
Carolyn was clearly frustrated. “He just completely took over the meeting… I felt like I had no ability to regain control.” “How did he do that?”, I asked.
Customer Satisfaction and The Hero
In this series I am exploring the notion of viewing interdepartmental relationships within a company as “customer-provider” relationships. In this post I want to tackle the question: What does customer satisfaction mean? Customer satisfaction is hard to define. Ultimately, we want customers from whom wealth flows to the owners to be content, so the wealth…
Goodness
Taking a short break from my customer series to ask a silly question… What are you good at? This Thanksgiving week, I want to think about things we can be thankful for. So lets start with those things that help us be valuable to those around us.
Trust is not Binary
I read this post in Dan Rockwell’s Leadership Freak blog and it aggravated me. I agree with Bob that trust is given, not earned, but distrust is often earned. Trust isn’t merely given, it is needed. I have to trust. I can’t function without it. It’s a matter of how much. Do I trust you…
The Elusive Inch Pebble
Of course this title has everyone asking “What in heck is an inch pebble?”, right? Well I was first introduced to this term by Johanna Rothman in an article she wrote about a hundred years ago. While I read it, and intuitively understood it, it didn’t at first occur to me that it was a…
A Fascination With Governance
If a little is good, then a bunch must be better, until it isn’t. I was having a conversation on the train the other day on the way home from work. I was sitting with an acquaintance that I ride with from time to time and we were both complaining about the week we were…