Collaborative

Chance Favours the Connected Mind

What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? This video below looks at this question and provides and overview to the answer from Steven Johnson's new book “Where Good Ideas Come From” People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. We have all heard of the need for incubation but Johnson has observed that this process rarely occurs in isolation. We need to create environments of conversations a...
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Who are better leaders? Moms or Dads?

You may be thinking that this is a trick question and perhaps you are right.  For some time now, I have been using the family system as a micro version of what happens in larger organizational systems.   So what better way than to look at the parental role as leader and how it plays out in gender differences?* I begin with the story of my two parents.  The year is 1944, Bletchley Park, England.  My mother at 25 was less than half the age I am now.  She was a Flight Sergeant in the Women's Aux...
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Rethinking Collaboration

What happens when the objective is clear but the resources and time frames keep shifting?  That is exactly what many of us experienced when we ended up in one location and due to the volcanic ash hovering over most of Europe, we could not travel home or to our next meeting. The news kept reporting how calm everyone was.  I know this to be true.  When I first arrived at the airport early Thursday morning - it was so eerie how quiet it was.  Everyone stood at the departure sign expecting the ca...
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Rethinking Engagement

The whole reason I ended up caught in Prague when the volcano ash swept across Europe was that I had been in Olomouc for a day teaching a two hour class to students at the Placky University of Olomouc.  Our topic was Negotiation with a focus on Interest Based Negotiation. If someone where to ask me the most important aspect of engagement I would answer with two things.  (As you know, I hate to be restricted) Alignment Communications The students were engaged and entertained...
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Can you explain Employee Engagement so EVERYONE Gets It?

I was having coffee yesterday morning with a friend and colleague.  She was asking me how my success survey was going and what else I was writing about.  I mentioned that my last two topics were on employee engagement.  So she asked: "What really do mean by employee engagement?"  So I went into my long speech based on my first post using the Wii as an example. I explained that while employee engagement encompasses the old motivation and job satisfaction "techniques" it was so much more...
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Do we really need engaged employees?

I remember in my twenties complaining to my mother about how stressed I was.  She looked at me as if I had landed from Mars.  She asked skeptically: "What exactly do you have to be stressed about?"  I don't remember what I answered but she told me that, not once living through the London Blitz of WWII did any one stop to complain about stress.  The whole concept was completely foreign to her. I mean really . . . what is all the whining about?  I am sure if we were living from hand t...
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