Archive for December, 2002

Leadership Skill: Rotten Rewards

Monday, December 23rd, 2002

Despite some talk about team rewards, most team members are paid today exactly as they were paid in the days before teams, on a strictly individual basis.
We are rewarding individuals when we should be rewarding teams or the workforce as a whole. Not that there cannot or should not be “stars”. Once again the 80/20 [...]

Change Management Strategies: Rules for Team Change

Monday, December 16th, 2002

The process of change can be better understood and made more effective by breaking it down according to some basic principles.  There are twelve key rules for reducing team resistance and clearing the way for effective team change.
1. Plan for the change.  We plan for change in order to have some measure of influence over it.  [...]

Leadership Skill: The Meaning of Meaning

Monday, December 9th, 2002

The “Pull” approach toward change (looking to the future) derives in large part from the writings of psychotherapist Viktor Frankl.  In 1959, he published a remarkable account of survival, Man’s Search for Meaning. Because of the insights in this short, readable book, Frankl was hailed by the psychological world as a liberator from the dominance [...]

Leadership Skill: Psychological Context

Monday, December 2nd, 2002

There is a natural human trap in which we often get caught. Basically, we all interpret information we hear based on the last piece of information we happened to be thinking about. For example, if a salesperson is thinking she knows what a customer needs (”a blue coat”), she may unthinkingly ring up the blue [...]