by admin | Apr 11, 2017 | Collaborating, Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, Influencing, Latest Updates, Leadership self development, Leadership Skills, Self-Awareness
Every client I work with complains that they need more effective cross-organizational collaboration. They say that collaboration is more crucial than ever, due to increasingly complex environments and the speed of change. Yet people still work in their silos and spend...
by admin | Feb 14, 2017 | Blog (All Categories), Collaborating, Conflict, creative leadership, creativity, Emotional Intelligence, Executive Teams, Influencing, Latest Updates, Leadership Teams, Organizational Change
I can’t blame you if you greet this post with skepticism. Leadership and poetry seems like an oxymoron, like rain and San Diego. I’m even a little surprised you are still reading. But here are lessons from two senior executives who recently used poetry to align their...
by admin | Aug 10, 2016 | Collaborating, Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, Influencing, Latest Updates, Leadership self development, Self-Awareness
Ann was upset with her boss. During a leadership program I was conducting she complained that he scheduled team meetings every Friday at 5pm. Oh, I said, 5pm on a Friday does sound like an unproductive time to meet. When I asked what her boss said when she confronted...
by admin | Jul 13, 2016 | Collaborating, Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Skills, Self-Awareness
Two founding partners of a technology startup asked me to resolve some of their conflicts. Hal initially convinced me that Dave was an antagonistic bully. Dave then convinced me that Hal was a scheming weasel. Yet when I met them individually, they both seemed quite...
by admin | Jun 7, 2016 | Collaborating, cross cultural understanding, Influencing, Organizational Culture
A client from Amsterdam used to watch me facilitate leadership programs for his company’s executives. At the end of each session I’d ask him how he thought it went. Mark would look very serious and say, “Robert, not everything is AWESOME.” He’d pronounce...
by admin | Apr 5, 2016 | Blog (All Categories), Collaborating, Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, Latest Updates, Self-Awareness
Google recently conducted a study of their internal teams to answer the question, “what makes teams great?” After rigorous analysis and over 200 interviews, they found the most significant factor for team performance is ‘psychological safety,’ trusting that you can...