I’m waiting in a pediatric ICU room for the hospital staff to bring back my son from his emergency MRI. I can’t do anything to speed up when he returns. All I can do is wait. There are some things in life you must wait for whether you like it or not. Yet all around […]
You’ll save yourself hours of effort and years of frustration if you publish minutes for all your team meetings. Minutes include: Who attended What topics you discussed What decisions you made Who will take action (and by when) When you’ll meet again [I like to use a standard format, with a fixed font and set
…and I’m sticking to it. This one is simple: Publish an agenda for every meeting and follow your agenda every time. Even if you include a portion in the agenda for open discussion/final thoughts/last nuggets, have an agenda! You’ll think you don’t need an agenda because everyone knows the order of your meetings. You’ll think
Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one’s arguments.” – Admiral H.G. Rickover At work we use a lot of Plans of Action and Milestones or POA&Ms to track our work. If you’ve never seen one before, a POA&M is a typically an Excel spreadsheet listing actions, who will do the action, when
“They” won’t let us. “They” tried that before. “They” don’t care. Whenever you hear someone use “they” you must ask, Who’s “they”? Usually “they” is an untested assumption that some group or some person may be against your change. Once you know the group or person, by code or by name, you can call them
Reading for me is like applying large strips of Velcro to my brain. With each new thing I read, whether a business book, novel or local newspaper, I now have new information that other information can stick to. This new information always seems to help me find the patterns I need to drive the changes
In need of more Velcro Read More »
Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” – John Kenneth Galbraith Be willing to change your mind. Be open to something new. Ask, “How would it work if that were true?” and listen for something amazing.
Toyota paid out big money over their sticking accelerator pedal problem. Turns out, according to initial reports, that the actual cause of the accidents was operator error. It seems drivers thought they were hitting the brake when they were actually pushing the gas all the way to the floor. While driving change I see the
Is that the brake or the gas? Read More »
I’ve been stringing together weeks of adventures. Last week I was at a Naval Postgraduate School class in Monterey, California. For the next several weeks I’ll be road tripping through Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin then back through Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Washington. While I’m gone, where will you be? I
Adventures and What Else? Read More »
If you goal is to make change, it’s foolish to try to change the worldview of the majority if the majority is focused on maintaining the status quo. The opportunity is to carve out a new tribe, to find the rabble-rousers and change lovers who are seeking new leadership and run with them instead.” –
