Metaphor Tuesday: Ripened Teams. Lessons From Plants.

A good metaphor is an awesome tool to get fresh perspectives on things. It is fun to play with. Perhaps we should make it a regular exercise to come up with new metaphors. On Tuesday. If you have a metaphor you like, I’ll hope you share it in the comments. I fully enjoyed working with …

Three Balances For Resilient Groups. Why Every Group Will Collapse.

Do you know the feeling at the end of your holiday you spent with a group? That was fun. Glad it is over. Let’s do this again sometime. I’ve done some fantastic organized travel tours. Traveling for a month with people you have never met before through a strange continent. Awesome. At first everyone is …

Reputation Space: Trust In A Connected World

People cluster together. We form groups for economic and social reasons. What if we could use our natural tendency for social clustering as a way to drive teams? What if we could create conditions that would attract “the right people”? What if those “right people” would “trust” all other member in the group, just because …

You And Your Team: Drill Instructor Or The Muppets?

How do you perceive your team? No really. I mean it. If you have to create a metaphor about you and your team, what would it be? Misunderstood Genius? You’ll be better off doing stuff yourself. Ah, in the old days… let me tell you about them ol’ days… Mother Hen? Making sure the chicks …

Reduce Interventions: Mess Less With Your Team

When intervening your team, you are changing their behavior. By asking them over and over again how they are doing against the plan, you are changing their responses. Even some well intended interventions can make things worse: “Seagull coaching (dive in, dump on people and dash off), the most common form of coaching, just makes …