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Team Operating Principles
- February 16, 2017
- Eric Douglas
These “rules of engagement” or “operating principles” can go a long way toward minimizing team conflicts and helping people build trust.
These “rules of engagement” or “operating principles” can go a long way toward minimizing team conflicts and helping people build trust.
When employees feel high levels of trust, they feel a sense of calm happiness. They take pride in their work, they communicate openly and honestly, and to the extent they can, they think of themselves as stewards, running the business like they own it. A lack of trust breeds the opposite feeling. It causes people …
Continue reading “Four Leadership Competencies That Build Trust”
If you’re going to get the right ingredients, you need to be disciplined about whom you hire, whom you promote, and whom you reward. It doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is: Don’t settle for second best. Great leaders make sure they get, in the words of Jim Collins, “the right people on …
Continue reading “Hiring Tips for Getting the Right People on the Bus”
Delegating effectively is one of the most important things a manager does. The best managers in the world excel at knowing when to delegate, how to delegate, and to whom to delegate. A key to their success – perhaps the most important key – is that they’ve learned how to hire effective people and then …
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When your organization is under fire or in crisis, you need to see yourself as a heat shield. The metaphor is apt. When a space vehicle re-enters the earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield deflects and diffuses the energy that would otherwise burn up the capsule. Similarly, leaders must act as heat shields for their organizations. …
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I worked today with a new executive – let’s call him Gary – who skipped four levels to take over a senior-level leadership role at his company. Gary was now in the remarkable position of managing his old boss’s boss’s boss. He asked me what advice I would give him. I told him that the …
Part of managing decisions well is learning how to manage conflicts effectively. There are two types of conflict. One reflects differences in priorities, approaches, and ways of seeing things. This kind of conflict is natural, since it simply reflects different roles and different styles. Helping people figure out how to navigate these kinds of conflicts …
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Several trends are making competence in communication more important today than ever before. First, the need to respond quickly to market changes creates the need for a less rigid and bureaucratic work environment. Information must quickly flow up, down, and across traditional channels. No longer is it enough to have a few skilled communicators at …
Continue reading “5 Trends in Workplace Communication”
There’s a concept of community in South Africa that’s called “Ubuntu.” It emphasizes the interdependence of each member of the community. It recognizes a person’s status as a human being, entitled to unconditional respect, dignity, value and acceptance. But it also entails the converse. Each person has a corresponding duty to give respect, dignity, value …
Boards of directors clearly have ultimate decision-making authority for everything under their guidance. But in actual practice, many boards don’t exercise that authority. Staff often drafts a recommendation and brings it to the board to ratify. This may be efficient, but it casts the board in the role of “rubber stamping.” Over time, this erodes …
Continue reading “Sharpening the Focus for Boards of Directors”