March 2009

How goals help us fail

March 15th I read an article in Boston’s Sunday Globe Ideas section on how goals have a dangerous side. The article called Why Setting Goals Can Backfire jumped-started my thoughts on goals. The past two weeks I have spent time thinking and scribbling notes all over this article. I thought I’d share some. [the .pdf [...]

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Buy in

In organization change I always avoid the term buy in. You may hear the term in some variation of the following: now we need to get [insert stakeholder here] to buy in. I have never been comfortable asking anyone to “buy in” to a strategic plan, a new product launch, or an organization change. ‘Buy [...]

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Leading and managing

Managers manage. Leaders lead. Are these roles so different? A manager is charged to manage their resources against a budget.  Does this allow a manager to maximizing their talent, to cultivate creativity in their team, or to take risks?  The manager needs to deliver to their budget and align their resources to successfully enable their [...]

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Culture war

Does your company have a hiring philosophy to find people who fit into the company culture? Do you interview people to fit into the culture of your division? Do you interview people to fit into the culture of your team? Why do we look for people who will fit in when what your business needs [...]

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Leaders and fishing

I focus a lot of root-cause analysis on how a leader affects their organization. Though it may seem people are responsible for their own motivation, this assumption is far too variable to count on for results. People, rightly so, have their own view, their own filter, their own experience, and their own goals. These rarely [...]

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