We all know that feeling – you're in a team meeting, and suddenly, passionate opinions start flying back and forth. While it can feel overwhelming, diverse perspectives can actually lead to fantastic innovation and problem-solving. It's those disagreements that, if managed well, can bring about the best decision-making. To help you navigate these situations, we've put together a guide for both team leaders and team members on how to disagree constructively. Grab a cup of coffee, and let's dive in.
We’reat the beginning of rolling out a global leadership development curriculum for a Financial Services client and the senior leaders astutely asked how I thought they could best support their leaders as they go through this process in the coming months. It occurred to me that capturing the list of recommendations might be helpful for some of our partners in organizational development and learning. In response, I compiled this list and I hope you’ll add your thoughts in the comments if you feel I missed something. Feel free to share this with your leaders at the beginning of your next training rollout.
Today we're diving headfirst into a competency that can be a game-changer in the work life of a leader, Emotional Agility. he skills required to be emotionally agile are very similar to those we prescribe for teams that want to be more agile: discover, recognize and take action. Rinse, repeat. To build stronger teams and thrive in our roles as leaders and managers, we need to bring these skills into our daily consciousness. How does your mindset impact how you show up? And how do you recognize when you should shift your mindset and when you should not? And even when you know you should, how do you fight your instincts?
Well, we just finished teaching a bunch of Working Sm@rt + Teams classes over the last four months, and while I'm a little tired of explaining the difference between Teams, a team, a chat, and a channel (really Microsoft???), I'm more jazzed than ever about this tool and the potential productivity gains when people use it well!
As more and more of us are working from home or a hybrid model, keeping in touch and working together as a team has become a top priority. Enter Microsoft Teams - a tool that makes it super easy to stay connected, organized, and on top of your game. Let's dive into some of the amazing benefits MS Teams has to offer for all your project work needs.
Have you experienced any recent changes in your life? Perhaps you've taken on a new position at work, welcomed a new team member, or updated your software. And if you're a parent, you understand how children are constantly growing and changing.
In a world that is constantly changing, one thing remains certain: every individual responds to change in their own unique way. Whether you embrace change with open arms or feel a sense of panic at the mere mention of it, there is a valuable tool that can help you understand the different behaviors that emerge during these transitions.
I recently moved into a new house and found myself evaluating a room that's needs painting. "Is the color close enough to avoid a primer? It would save time to jump right to a coat of the new stuff. But would it really if I had to add a second coat because the old color showed through? Ok, time for a base coat of primer!"
That same day I found myself teaching our Influencing class to a group of front line managers and it occurred to me that the same conversation applied. You cannot skip the base coat! All the fancy influencing approaches fall flat if you haven't checked the boxes on these top five fundamentals of influencing:
I've seen a multitude of blogs and articles citing the stat that the average duration of a new year’s resolution is 19 days. The gist of most of them is to take the stat as a sign that resolutions are a waste of your time. I disagree. I think if you make a list of the most successful people you know and compared them to everyone else, you would find one critical difference. Follow-through.
Ever Experience the Meeting After the Meeting?
It’s the meeting after the meeting. You know the one: the team meeting just ended, and everyone hops on their phones to text and chat about what went down during the team meeting. It’s where you complain about your team leader, that one guy who is always interrupting, and the people who are not pulling their weight. It’s where you talk about what you would do differently if you were in charge, offer suggestions for how things might work better, and share your real feelings and thoughts. The meeting after the meeting is the real meeting --- where all the truth is. But why?
Person A: How’s it going?
Person B: I’m insanely busy.
Person A: Yeah, me too. I’m scheduling into next year already.
Person B: I get it. I haven’t taken a real unplugged vacation since before Covid.
Person A: I hear you. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up.
Person B: I know. I'm considering leaving. I'm so burnt out.
And just like that, we are falling back into the patterns of pre-pandemic workplace and homelife imbalance. Our hybrid office culture has brought with it a pace and volume of both communications and information that would overload anyone. Financial upheaval, supply chain issues, talent shortages and overtaxed healthcare systems have workplaces feeling more overwhelmed than ever. So, we respond by trying to simply catch it. How do we catch it?
During Times of Change, Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
The flight was just about to take off, when abruptly it turned around and headed back to the gate. The pilot told us it was a mechanical problem and that they'd get back to us. And then they didn't. For the next 15 minutes I watched people begin to spiral into a panic. Should we call customer service? Should we get off the flight? What kind mechanical? Any time estimates?