Rodger Dean Duncan's Blog, page 16

Is Your Team A Winner Or An Also-ran?

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You’ve seen most of the teamwork clichés:

  – Together Everyone Achieves More

  – Great things never come from comfort zones

  – Teamwork makes the dream work

  – Individually we’re a drop, together we’re an ocean

But of course posters in the employee cafeteria don’t transform glib slogans into reality. Effective teamwork requires a deep understanding of human behaviors and a disciplined approach to execution.

Both of those ingredients are abundantly present in The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance by Adrian Gostick and Ch...

Is ‘Motivation’ More Nuanced Than You Thought?

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Corporate hallways and lunchrooms are often festooned with “motivational” wall posters. The idea seems to be that clichés enhance comradeship and performance.

Military drill instructors scream at recruits, apparently assuming that insults and humiliation are inspiring.

Motivation can come from many sources.

A tyrannical manager may “motivate” people to work killer hours that ruin health and family life and actually jeopardize productivity.

Alternatively, a thoughtful leader can engage people’s heads, hearts and hopes in ways that “m...

Motivation: More Nuanced Than You Thought?

Twitter

Corporate hallways and lunchrooms are often festooned with “motivational” wall posters. The idea seems to be that clichés enhance comradeship and performance.

Military drill instructors scream at recruits, apparently assuming that insults and humiliation are inspiring.

Motivation can come from many sources.

A tyrannical manager may “motivate” people to work killer hours that ruin health and family life and actually jeopardize productivity.

Alternatively, a thoughtful leader can engag...

Creating a Culture Where People Choose to Be ‘All In’

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Engagement—the degree to which people invest discretionary effort on the job—has been all the rage in business circles for years. “Engaged” employees are absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work. They have a sense of psychological ownership of their organization’s purpose and success.

The Gallup organization’s Q12 survey has gathered data from tens of millions of people. The good news is that employee engagement seems to be slowly increasing. The bad news is that engagement of U...

You’re Contagious, So Make the Most of It

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You’re contagious. And you’re surrounded by people who are also contagious.

I’m not referring to a flu bug or a case of measles. I’m talking about how you view your environment, how you respond to personalities and issues, how you live your life.

Have you ever been around someone who brings a dark cloud into the room and rains on everyone’s day?

Have you ever known someone who always manages to ask the right questions, always finds a way to lift and encourage, always finds a way to h...

Nincompoopery: Has It Crept Into Your Workplace?

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“People are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”

That may sound like a line from a comedian. But it’s actually from Bertrand Russell. You know—the British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, essayist, social critic and Nobel laureate. Not known for comedy.

Intentionally or not, Russell provided a fair description of what often occurs in organizational cultures: Rules masquerade as reason. Sketchy thinking becomes strategy. Hair-brained ideas bec...

An Attitude of Gratitude Makes You a Better Leader

Enjoy the little things, because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.

That may sound like a line from a syrupy greeting card. But it turns out to be an important ingredient in workplace issues like engagement, wellbeing, productivity, and even profit.

Star Dargin knows a bit about the rough-and-tumble of competitive business. Earlier in her career, she led hundreds of professionals in producing a bestselling software product that generated more than $500 million in a...

Guiding Principles For Leadership That Works

There are almost as many leadership theories as there are would-be practitioners.

Many of those theories—or call them frameworks or philosophies—have excellent underpinnings.

I’ve found that, regardless of the latest leadership formula you may choose to try, a few simple guiding principles can always be helpful.

Keep it simple. Go back to basics.

The stones in the Jefferson Memorial were deteriorating badly. The initial, knee-jerk plan was to replace the stones with fresh ones hauled up from...

For Stronger Relationships: Learn To Disagree Better

Our current environment is sometimes touted as the age of tolerance. Consider how many company rosters now include positions like “VP of Diversity and Inclusion.”

But the reality signals something else.

Each Thanksgiving, the Internet is abuzz with advice on how to avoid letting dinner table discussions devolve into a Turkey Day brawl. Thousands (millions?) of people report abandoning social media because they can’t stomach the vitriol. Universities are “uninviting” speakers whose views might...

For Strong Relationships: Learn To Disagree Better

Our current environment is sometimes touted as the age of tolerance. Consider how many company rosters now include positions like “VP of Diversity and Inclusion.”

But the reality signals something else.

Each Thanksgiving, the Internet is abuzz with advice on how to avoid letting dinner table discussions devolve into a Turkey Day brawl. Thousands (millions?) of people report abandoning social media because they can’t stomach the vitriol. Universities are “uninviting” speakers whose views might...