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How to Be More Strategic
As my strategy month feature continues, today’s post kicks off Strategic Thinking week. Here are three ways to be more strategic in the job you’re in.
How to Communicate Strategy
As part of Strategy Month, this post addresses the mistake organizations make by not communicating strategy broadly. What are the reasons behind strategy being the best kept secret and what’s the benefit of reversing this position and sharing strategy with everyone.
Do This Before You Start Strategic Planning
Before you dive into strategic planning, think about all the human issues that get in the way of evaluating and selecting the right path. Strategic planning is presented as a sterile, logical, process but it’s anything but. If you don’t actively manage these psychological issues, your strategy process will likely derail.
Is Interrupting Rude?
Odds are that you interrupt others in situations where you shouldn’t and yet you fail to interrupt others in situations where it would be beneficial. How do you know the difference between when interrupting is rude and when it’s important? Here’s a quick overview you can share with your team to encourage the right interruptions.
Working Cross-functionally? Build Trust Before You Need It
Too much work, too many silos, and a variety of other problems mean that we invest too little in proactively building cross-functional relationships. That comes back to bite when you need something. It’s so important to invest in building trust with your colleagues in other functions BEFORE you need it. Here’s how.
Team Building Exercises for Remote Teams
Research is showing that lack of contextual knowledge about remote teammates is affecting trust and performance on virtual teams. Download this set of 9 exercises to foster mutual knowledge on your team.
Why You Think You’re Listening, but You’re Not
Listening, truly listening, is one of the hardest skills to master. Avoiding external distractions like your phone is one thing. Avoiding internal distractions like your brain’s compulsion to anticipate, relate, or judge is another. Use this list of common listening hurdles to identify where you commonly get tripped up and to prioritize your efforts to do a better job of listening to people this week.
Questions to Redirect a Low-Value Meeting
There are many ways that meetings devolve into low-value, mind-numbing time sucks. I’ve specified five of them and provided multiple questions you can use to nudge the conversation back in a more valuable direction, without sounding like a jerk.
How to End a Business Relationship
Among the many awkward business conversations that one needs to master to be productive, the “don’t call me, I’ll call you,” is one of the worst. Today, based on my own recent efforts to tackle my aversion to uncomfortable conversations, I bring you a few strategies (and a few sentences) to end an unproductive, unenjoyable, or unnecessary business relationship.
Pay Off One Conflict Debt in Your Life
I talk about conflict debt frequently, but I usually focus on the cost to your organization or to your team dynamics. Today, I shift the focus to the cost of conflict debt on you. Where have you been avoiding an issue so that it’s now slowly eroding trust or contributing to resentment? How can you take the first step to get out of that conflict debt and escape the stress and self-doubt that comes with it? When might it be best to walk away instead?
Reset Your Remote Management Approach
After coming out of the gates of 2021 hard, I am seeing teams crashing in February. More stress, more emotion, less productivity. We need a reset. Here are 10 things you can do to reset your remote management and get your team back on track. And if you are too busy to read a whole post, I have included the link to the quick click through version near the top.
How Do I Talk Someone Off the Ledge?
Based on the questions I’m getting from leaders, even high performers are starting to feel profound stress as we finish a full-year of trying to be productive in a pandemic. Unfortunately, the things you might say to help a stressed employee feel better might be making it worse. Here’s an alternative.