Did You Hear about Ryan's Peformance Review?

Gossip is a rampant problem in organizations. Some organizations have a very strong policy against it, to the point of someone being possibly fired if caught participating. It can be a cancer that will ruin your team, but even the best people can get caught up in it. Why? There are a few reasons why participating in gossip is the "easier choice" for people, even if they truly believe it is not a good practice. Need for acceptance. It's perhaps counterintuitive, because after all, gossip by naturealienates someone. But for those doing the gossiping, there is some satisfaction inknowing that someone else sees a situation or another person the same way or hasexperienced the same problems with them. In the illustration above, if severalcoworkers...

Read more »

Eight Team Building Lessons from Jesus

By today’s standards, Jesus may not be the first person you would pick as an example of a great team leader. He wasn’t on Facebook sharing links to leadership articles. He didn’t have an organizational chart. He often did things that didn’t make sense to His followers. But take a look at what we can learn from Him. He consulted His own leader. Jesus spent a lot of time with His Father. In fact, it was after an extended time in the wilderness that Jesus then picked his team. I imagine that God gave Him some wisdom about who to select and why. He kept His team small. Although Jesus interacted with a lot of people along the journey of His ministry (at times speaking to very large groups), His core group of disciples consisted of only 12 people,...

Read more »

Team Building Activity: Explore Your Community

Take your team on an exploration of the neighborhood, town or city in which your workplace is located. The longer we work at one place, the more likely we will fall into "auto pilot" in our commute and as we interact on our grounds. To do this well, pick a couple of creative employees and give them permission to take an afternoon to develop a short tour of the neighborhood. Ask them to find places that may have been overlooked. (For example, when I went to work in a new place, I discovered a beautiful park just up the road. Others who had worked there for quite awhile were glad to be reminded of the  nice place for a lunch break.) Allow them to do a little research about the history of the town or to try out a new place for lunch.) Select...

Read more »

Four Ways to Improve Your Communication as a Leader

Why is it that some companies have a reputation for being poor in communication? Hundreds of emails are sent, policies posted, and meetings held, yet employees find out about issues that affect them "through the grapevine," or don't have input into important decisions, or take surveys that don't seem to cause any ongoing, helpful changes. Could that be said of your organization? Are the people on your team just floating along in their jobs, frustrated because they aren't aware of what is going on or aren't consulted on matters that affect them directly? If you are a manager, you have a responsibility to improve communication with your team. Here are four ways to do so. Spend time with your employees, especially your direct reports. Shadow...

Read more »