encourage people to play

Another trick is to encourage people to play. “Some of the best ideas come out of joking around, which only comes when you (or the boss) give yourself permission to do it,” Pete [Docter] says. “It can feel like a waste of time to watch YouTube videos or to tell stories of what happened last weekend, but it can actually be very productive in the long run. I’ve heard some people describe creativity as ‘unexpected connections between unrelated concepts or ideas.’ If that’s at all true, you have to be in a certain mindset to make those connections. So when I sense we’re getting nowhere, I just shut things down. We all go off to something else, Later, once the mood has shifted, I’ll attack the problem again.”

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

iterative trial and error

While the process was difficult and time consuming, Pete and his crew never believed that a failed approach meant that they had failed. Instead, they saw that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited, even while in the midst of confusion. This is key: When experimentation is seen as necessary and productive, not as a frustrating waste of time, people will enjoy their work – even when it is confounding them. 

The principle I’m describing here – iterative trial and error – has long-recognized value in science. When scientists have a question, they construct hypotheses, test them, analyze them, and draw conclusions – and then they do it all over again. The reasoning behind this is simple: Experiments are fact-finding missions that, over time, inch scientists toward greater understanding. That means any outcome is a good outcome, because it yields new information. If your experiment proved your initial theory wrong, better to know it sooner rather than later. Armed with new facts, you can then reframe whatever question you’re asking....

There is an alternative approach to being wrong as fast as you can. It is the notion that if you carefully think everything through, if you are meticulous and plan well and consider all possible outcomes, you are more likely to create a lasting product. But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them – if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line – well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’s easier to plan derivative work – things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. Moreover, you cannot plan your way out of problems. While planning is very important, and we do a lot of it, there is only so much you can control in a creative environment. In general, I have found that people who pour their energy into thinking about an approach and insisting that it is too early to act are wrong just as often as people who dive in and work quickly. The overplanners just take longer to be wrong (and, when things inevitably go awry, are more crushed by the feeling that they have failed).  There’s a corollary to this, as well: The more time you spend mapping out an approach, the more likely you are to get attached to it. The nonworking idea gets worn into your brain, like a rut in the mud, It can be difficult to get free of it and head in a different direction. Which, more often than not, is exactly what you must do.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

scapegoating

There’s a quick way to determine if your company has embraced the negative definition of failure. Ask yourself what happens when an error is discovered. Do people shut down and turn inward, instead of coming together to untangle the causes of problems that might be avoided going forward? Is the question being asked: Whose fault was this? If so, your culture is one that vilifies failure. Failure is difficult enough without it being compounded by the search for a scapegoat.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

the politics of failure

Rejecting failure and avoiding mistakes seems like high-minded goals, but they are fundamentally misguided. Take something like the Golden Fleece awards which were established in 1975 to call attention to government-funded projects that were particularly egregious wastes of money. (Among the winners were things like an $84,000 study on love commissioned by the National Science Foundation, and a $3,000 Department of Defense study that examined whether people in the military should carry umbrellas.) While such scrutiny may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it had a chilling effect on research. No one wanted to “win” a Golden Fleece Award because, under the guise of avoiding waste, its organizers had inadvertently made it dangerous and embarrassing for everyone to make mistakes.

The truth is, if you fund thousands of research projects every year, some will have obvious, measurable, positive impacts, and others will go nowhere. We aren’t very good at predicting the future – that’s a given – and yet the Golden Fleece Awards tacitly implied that researches should know before they do their research whether or not the results of that research would have value. Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning. And that had fallout: The fact that failing could earn you a very public flogging distorted the way researchers chose projects. The politics of failure, then, impeded our progress. 

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

think about failure differently

For most of us failure comes with baggage – a lot of baggage – that I believe is traced directly back to our days in school. From a very early age, the message is drilled into our heads: Failure is bad; failure means you didn’t study or prepare; failure means you slacked off or – worse! – aren’t smart enough to begin with. Thus, failure is something to be ashamed of. This perception lives on long into adulthood, even in people who have learned to parrot the oft-repeated arguments about the upside of failure. How many articles have you read on that topic alone? And yet, even as they nod their heads in agreement, many readers of those articles still have the emotional reaction that they had as children. They just can’t help it: That early experience of shame is too deep-seated to erase. All the time in my work, I see people resist and reject failure and try mightily to avoid it, because regardless of what we say, mistakes feel embarrassing. There is a visceral reaction to failure: It hurts.

We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth. 

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

people are more important than ideas

The gestation of Toy Story 2 offers a number of lessons that were vital to Pixar’s evolution. Remember that the spine of the story – Woody’s dilemma, to stay or to go – was the same before and after the Braintrust worked it over. One version didn’t work at all, and the other was deeply affecting. Why? Talented storytellers had found a way to make viewers care, and the evolution of this storyline made it abundantly clear to me: If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.

The takeaway here is worth repeating: Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right. It is easy to say you want talented people, and you do, but the way those people interact with one another is the real key. Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched. That means it is better to focus on how a team is performing, not on the talents of the individuals within it. A good team is made up of people who complement each other. There is an important principle here that may seem obvious, yet – in my experience – is not obvious at all. Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.

This is an issue I have thought a lot about over the years. Once, I was having lunch with the president of another movie studio, who told me that his biggest problem was not finding good people; it was finding good ideas. I remember being stunned when he said that – it seemed patently false to me, in part because I’d found the exact opposite to be true on Toy Story 2. I resolved to test whether what seemed a given to me was, in fact, a common belief. So for the next couple of years I made a habit, when giving talks, of posing the question to my audience: Which is more valuable, good ideas or good people? No matter whether I was talking to retired business executives or students, to high school principals or artists, when I asked for a show of hands, the audiences would be split 50-50. (Statisticians will tell you that when you get a perfect split like this, it doesn’t mean that half know the right answer – it means that they are all guessing, picking at random, as if flipping a coin.)

People think so little about this that, in all these years, only one person in an audience has ever pointed out the false dichotomy. To me, the answer should be obvious: Ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas. 

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

make room for what they do not know

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know – not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

resume the path of dialogue

[Thomas Merton is] a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.
From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past. It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women, in any way possible, to do the same. When countries which have been at odds resume the path of dialogue – a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons – new opportunities open up for all. This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 222-223).

Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio)

Speech given to Congress. Time Magazine. Washington D.C. 9/24/2015

simplistic reductionism

[T]here is [a] temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil... The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice.... Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.

Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio)

Speech given to Congress. Time Magazine. Washington D.C. 9/24/2015

my boss is a jerk

“My boss is a jerk” is pretty much the number one stressor in the workplace.... What to do? Well, if you really don’t think you can quit, here are some ideas....

Build yourself a really thick skin.

Part of the problem here is that you are taking personally the fact that your boss has a lousy personality. You just can’t. The fact that someone is an awful person has nothing to do with you. It is as disconnected from you as the weather. You don’t take it personally when it hails, do you? No. You wear a good coat and warm boots and you carry an umbrella. So treat your boss and his moods like the weather. Stay out of his way when you can, and when he does act out, observe the behavior and say to yourself “Wow, he is going off the rails again, how interesting.” Tell yourself that it’s not about you. It is about him—and the poor thing has to wake up as himself every morning. But you get to be you, which is way more fun. So put your thick skin coat on, carry your psychic umbrella, and get on with it....

Use Silence.

When it comes to communication, often the person who speaks the least has the most power. Your instinct might be to talk things out, but if you don’t have a willing participant in building or repairing a relationship, it’s really not worth trying. So, if forced into a conversation with your boss, prepare by being clear about the one or two messages you want to share and share only those.

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard 

"My Boss Is A Jerk—What Do I Do? Ask Madeleine." Blanchard LeaderChat. 8/22/2015

Why can't this be done sooner?

I’m always shocked by how many plans and action items come out of meetings without being assigned due dates. Even when dates are assigned, they’re often based on half-baked intuition about how long the task should take. Completion dates and times follow a tribal notion of the sun setting and rising, and too often “tomorrow” is the default answer.

It’s not that everything needs to be done NOW, but for items on your critical path, it’s always useful to challenge the due date. All it takes is asking the simplest question: “Why can't this be done sooner?” Asking it methodically, reliably and habitually can have a profound impact on the speed of your organization.

Dave Girouard

"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

knowing when to end debate

There's an art to knowing when to end debate and make a decision. Many leaders are reluctant to make the final call when there are good arguments and a lot of emotions on both sides. We intuitively want the team to come to the right decision on their own. But I’ve found that people are enormously relieved when they hear that you’re grabbing the baton and accepting responsibility for a decision. Using the “CEO prerogative” — to make the final call — isn’t something you ought to need every day. As long as you do it sparingly, you can actually make your employees more comfortable, and engender more trust by pulling the trigger, logically explaining your choice and sticking with it.

Dave Girouard

"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

better than a perfect plan

General George S. Patton

When you think about it, all business activity really comes down to two simple things: Making decisions and executing on decisions. Your success depends on your ability to develop speed as a habit in both....

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.

General George Patton said that, and I definitely subscribe to it. Do you remember the last time you were in a meeting and someone said, “We’re going to make this decision before we leave the room”? How great did that feel? Didn’t you just want to hug that person?

The process of making and remaking decisions wastes an insane amount of time at companies. The key takeaway: WHEN a decision is made is much more important than WHAT decision is made.

If, by way of habit, you consistently begin every decision-making process by considering how much time and effort that decision is worth, who needs to have input, and when you’ll have an answer, you'll have developed the first important muscle for speed.

This isn’t to say all decisions should be made quickly. Some decisions are more complicated or critical than others. It might behoove you to wait for more information. Some decisions can’t be easily reversed or would be too damaging if you choose poorly. Most importantly, some decisions don’t need to be made immediately to maintain downstream velocity.

Deciding on when a decision will be made from the start is a profound, powerful change that will speed everything up. In my many years at Google, I saw Eric Schmidt use this approach to decision-making on a regular basis — probably without even thinking about it. Because founders Larry and Sergey were (and are) very strong-minded leaders involved in every major decision, Eric knew he couldn’t make huge unilateral choices. This could have stalled a lot of things, but Eric made sure that decisions were made on a specific timeframe — a realistic one — but a firm one. He made this a habit for himself and it made a world of difference for Google.


Dave Girouard
"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

cultivate resilience

According to experts, the following 11 activities help cultivate resilience:

1. Having a core set of beliefs that nothing can shake.
2. Finding meaning in whatever stressful or traumatic thing that has happened.
3. Maintaining a positive outlook.
4. Taking cues from someone else who is especially resilient.
5. Not running away from things that scare you: Face them.
6. Reaching out for support when things go haywire.
7. Learning new things as often as you can.
8. Having an exercise regimen you’ll stick to.
9. Not beating yourself up or dwelling on the past.
10. Recognizing what makes you uniquely strong—and owning it.
11. Practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness deserves a special mention. In a study, Marines who underwent an eight-week course in mindfulness showed great gains in resilience. No only did their heart rate and breathing rate show less reactivity when faced with a stressful situation, their brains changed too: They showed lower activation in the region of the brain associated with emotional reactions. By the end of training, their brains looked more resilient.


Samantha Boardman M.D.
"Bounce Back: 11 Ways to be More Resilient: Data-driven insights to help deal with stress." Psychology Today. 8/14/2015

a sense of connection

If you get most of your self-worth from your job and you get fired, you’ve suddenly lost both your source of income and a big part of your identity, says [Michael] Ungar. Resilient people often have a number of areas from which they get their sense of self-worth, says Ungar. They may have deep friendships or family connections, strong faith, or a leadership role in the community. They’re better able to bounce back, because even if one goes away, they still have a sense of connection and being valued from those other areas, he says.

Gwen Moran

"6 Habits of Resilient People." Fast Company. 1/7/2014

they accept failure

Paul LeBuffe lectures about resilience as part of his role as director of the Devereux Center for Resilient Children, a Villanova, Pennsylvania, facility that works with educators and mental health professionals to develop more resilient children. It’s not uncommon for his audience to include young people who were highly successful students, but graduated during the recession and are devastated at their inability to find jobs.

"They don’t know how to cope with the fact that they didn’t get the first job they applied for. So we hear a lot about these young people sitting in their parents’ basements playing video games," he says.

If you don’t give yourself the opportunity to fail sometimes and accept it as a part of life, you’re going to struggle with bouncing back, LeBuffe says. Successfully emerging from failure develops the ability to be optimistic that things can be bad now, but they’ll be okay eventually, he says.

Gwen Moran

"6 Habits of Resilient People." Fast Company. 1/7/2014

the journey of change

Effective organizational leadership is more about managing the journey of change than announcing the destination.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations. FT Press. 2010.

the true test of a servant leader

The true test of a servant leader is this: Do those around the servant leader become wiser, freer, more autonomous, healthier, and better able themselves to become servant leaders?


Robert Greenleaf
As quoted in Ken Blanchard. Leading at a Higher Level. 2010

self-serving leaders

Self-serving leaders give themselves away in two ways. The first is how they receive feedback. Have you ever tried to give feedback to someone up the hierarchy, and that person killed the messenger? If that has ever occurred, you were dealing with a self-serving leader. They hate feedback. Why? Because if you give them any negative feedback, they think you don’t want them to lead anymore. And that’s their worst nightmare, because they are their position. The second giveaway for self-serving leaders is their unwillingness to develop other leaders around them. They fear the potential competition for their leadership position.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level. 2010

Photo by rafa espada

from success to significance

Too many leaders today focus only on success. They think success depends only on how much wealth they have accumulated, the amount of recognition they have received, and their power and status. Nothing is inherently wrong with any of those things, as long as you don’t identify those things as who you are. As an alternative, we’d like you to focus on the opposite of each of those as you move from success to significance. What’s the opposite of accumulating wealth? It’s generosity of time, talent, treasure, and touch (reaching out to support others). What’s the opposite of recognition? It’s service. What’s the opposite of power and status? It’s loving relationships.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level. 2010

turning the hierarchy upside down

The traditional hierarchy is good for the visionary aspect of leadership. People look to the leader for vision and direction, and although a leader should involve experienced people in shaping direction, the ultimate responsibility remains with the leader and cannot be delegated to others.

However, the implantation role – living according to the vision – is where most leaders and organizations get into trouble. The traditional hierarchy too often is kept alive and well, leaving the customers neglected at the bottom. All the energy in the organization moves up the hierarchy as workers try to please and be responsive to their bosses. The authoritarian structure too often forces the front-line people, the customer contact people, to say frustrating things like, “It’s our policy,” “I just work here,” or “Do you want to talk to the supervisor?” In this environment, self-serving leaders assume “the sheep are there for the benefit of the shepherd.” All the energy in the organization flows up the hierarchy.

Effective implementation requires turning the hierarchy upside down so the customer contact people are at the top of the organization and are able to respond to customers, while leaders serve the needs of employees, helping them to accomplish the vision and direction of the organization.

Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges

The Servant Leader: Transforming You Heart, Head, Hands & Habits. 2003. J.Countryman.

we knew why we were there

Ken [Blanchard’s] father was a naval officer who retired early as a captain. When asked why he left the service early, he replied, “I hate to admit it, but I like the wartime Navy a lot better than the peacetime one. Not that I like to fight, but in wartime we knew why we were there and what our purpose was. We knew what we were trying to accomplish. The problem in the peacetime Navy is that since nobody knows what we are supposed to be doing, too many leaders think their full-time job is making other people feel unimportant.” That’s what happens when you are running an organization without a clear purpose.

Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges

The Servant Leader: Transforming You Heart, Head, Hands & Habits. 2003. J.Countryman.

“reflect credit” and “absorb blame"

Irv Grousbeck, a legendary Stanford professor of management, encourages would-be entrepreneurs to “reflect credit” and “absorb blame.”

People are smart. They spot phonies. Managers who step into the klieg lights when things go well — and duck behind the curtains when they don’t — are risking their employees’ trust, and asking for politics.

Joel Peterson, Professor of Management at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In A Great Business, People Trump Things. Forbes Magazine. 10/17/2012

the reluctant leader

To my way of thinking, part of the servant leader mentality is that of the reluctant leader. The reluctant leader is a person who assumes a leadership role only when necessary or when it seems to be the most logical serving choice. The reluctant leader takes action and leads when to do otherwise would be self-serving. There are indeed times and situations where it would seem easier to remain silent and withdrawn. Those are the moments when the reluctant leader makes the decision to rise up.

Dr. W. Kevin Barksdale

Dean, Professor of Management, Ken Blanchard College of Business. 2010.

make your presentations public

Within two hours of the keynote Apple made the video of the entire two-hour presentation available on its website. It’s not buried on the site, either. It’s on the home page. Presentations are now part of your brand’s story and marketing message. Post the slides on your website and on a sharing site such as Slideshare.net. The slides bring your brand story to life.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

time behind the scenes

Practice. A lot. A 20-minute demo and product launch can take up to 250 hours at Apple. That includes the time spent on creating the story line, designing slides, testing the demo, and on-stage rehearsals. Apple’s slides are brilliant and the presenters are smooth and ‘effortless’ because speakers and designers spend a lot of time behind the scenes to get everything just right.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

a Twitter-friendly headline

My favorite communication technique is what I call the Twitter-friendly headline. Whenever you launch a new product or service, clearly summarize it in one short sentence, preferably under 140 characters so it’s easily tweeted. Apple executives do this for every product announcement. The new iOS 7 was no exception. Twice in the presentation Tim Cook said, “iOS 7 is the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone.” Now take a look at a few tweets from popular media brands:

     @Mashable: Apple unveils iOS 7, ‘biggest change since the original iPhone.’

     @HuffPostTech: A look at iOS 7, the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone.

     @USATODAY: Tim Cook calls iOS7 the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone.

The Twitter headline works every time. Create one.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

stick to the 10-minute rule

University of Washington researcher, John Medina... once told me that no matter how engaging you are, your audience will begin to tune out of your conversation after about 10 minutes. That doesn’t mean you can’t reign them back in, but if you drone on and on you will most likely lose their attention.

Apple does a nice job of building in “soft breaks” to maintain the attention of the audience. [Tim] Cook didn’t speak for much more than ten minutes at a time. He would break up his slides with another speaker or a video. All the Apple speakers stuck to the rule. During his introduction of the new operating system, OS X Mavericks, Federighi included two demonstrations, both lasting under 10 minutes and both about 10 minutes apart. Although Federighi held the stage for more than 10 minutes, he provided soft breaks and kept the flow moving nicely: Slides-demo-slides-demo-slides.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

stick to one theme per slide

The designers behind Apple’s presentation slides once told me they stick to one theme per slide. Don’t try to cram too much content—too many ideas—on one slide. That goes for statistics, too. For example, think about how many slides you would create if you delivered the following idea: “The developer program is incredibly vibrant. We have over six million registered developers. Demand for this show has never been greater. We sold out in just over a minute [71 seconds].” Most people would put the two statistics, 6 million and 71 seconds, on one slide. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, had two slides. The first one simply read: 6 million. The second slide read: 71 seconds. The second slide also had the words “Sold Out” in red (see below). If a statistic is important enough for you to deliver and you want your audience to recall the data point, then it deserves its own slide.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

one-on-one

Several years ago my wife, Margie, was working with a fast-food chain and learned its turnover rate was substantially lower than the national average. She asked the manager what he was doing to keep the rate so low. At first, he said he didn’t think he was doing anything special, but further discussion revealed the answer: This manager made sure to take at least 10 minutes every week to talk to each employee. These conversations weren’t necessarily about job performance; they were just a conversation to check in with each employee to see how things were going.

After learning this, Margie talked to some of the staff. When she asked why they stayed, they all mentioned their manager and said they liked working for someone who cared about them... He made time for them, which in turn made them feel they were a respected part of the team.

Margie was so enthusiastic about this concept that she shared it with our leadership team and went on to develop a “one-on-one meetings” process. This process requires managers to meet one-on-one with each of their direct reports for 15 to 30 minutes at least every two weeks. These meetings are not to talk about performance or report on progress — they are meant to enhance the relationship between the manager and the employee.

The leader schedules the meeting, but the employee sets the agenda. It’s a chance to talk about anything: goals, share personal information, learn more about the company or ask for help to solve a problem. These kinds of conversations allow managers and employees to get to know each other as human beings.

We’ve found that when employees are not only allowed but also encouraged to talk with managers about their everyday lives — the good and the bad — relationships flourish and reach a new level of trust. Trusted working relationships improve performance at all levels.

As a leader, you might think you don’t have time to add more meetings, but you can’t afford not to take time for your people. If you have 10 direct reports and can’t find an additional few hours to mentor and develop them, leadership might not be the right role for you. One-on-one meetings are a significant way for leaders to demonstrate they care. Time in team meetings doesn’t count. Only one-on-one interactions deepen relationships, create loyalty and build partnerships.

Spending dedicated time lets employees know their work is important and that they are valued members of the team. These conversations are the foundation for strong, productive relationships that align people with each other and with the work of the organization in a satisfying, meaningful way. 

Ken Blanchard

"We Need to Talk." Chief Learning Officer. March 2014

getting lunch... smart office politics

Eating lunch at your desk every day may save you some time, but it might also limit your career success.

Executive coach Beth Weissenberger, cofounder of the Handel Group, says that getting lunch or a coffee with a coworker, especially one you don’t know very well, is not only a pleasant way to spend your break, but it’s smart office politics....

Think of it as the process of building relationships within your company — not through the use of deceit or manipulation, but by making connections.

“When you’re politicking in the office, you’re creating your reputation,” Weissenberger says. ”You’re handling your own PR.” 

And one of the easiest ways to do this is dedicating a half hour or so of your day to getting to know a coworker over a sandwich...

She recommends building relationships with people both above and below you in your company. By connecting with your superiors, Weissenberger says, you’re gaining allies who may vouch for you when a promotion opportunity comes up, and by connecting with those below you, you’re establishing yourself as a leader.

Richard Feloni

"Here's Why You Should Stop Eating Lunch At Your Desk Every Day." Business Insider. 12/10/2014