I Believe I Can Fly
How malleable are our beliefs? Two weeks ago Jeff posted on emotional maturity. In that post, he mentioned psychologist Albert Ellis's ABCs of emotions: There is an Activating event, which we filter through our Belief system to produce an emotional Consequence. Right...
Emotional Maturity: How do I get there?
Scenario 1: It's Monday morning and you are feeling great. You took the time Sunday evening to really get yourself organized, and you planned out for the week in order to help things go smoothly. No sooner do you arrive at work and someone comes up to you with a...
Time Flies (Away)
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) I'm supposed to be in New York visiting a friend right now. Instead, I'm sitting in my Grand Rapids home office writing this post with a new understanding of the risks of flying super...
The Great Eight: Wrap Up
I've served on a whole lot of teams in my life, some great, some not-so-great, and I can say without hesitation that the team I work with at Leading by DESIGN is the best, healthiest, most connected team I've worked on. I think the four of us (Rodger, Jeff, Gerald,...
The Great Eight: Chemistry
Chemistry is the last of our eight characteristics of great teams. This is the most difficult of the eight characteristics to write about as it’s the one I understand the least. I believe we can teach you how to grow the other seven characteristics how to pursue clear...
The Great Eight: Grace
Grace is a unique aspect of great teams. It’s also something that is seldom talked about by experts in team performance. Do you remember what we meant we used the term “grace” at our offsite where we explored the eight characteristics of great teams? The definition we...
The Great Eight: Knowing Yourself and Others
If everyone were just more like me, the world would be a better place—or at least my organization would be—or at least my team would be. Besides being an entirely narcissistic statement, it would not be the case that if our teams simply had more uniformity, they would...
The Great Eight: Talent
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) In order to be a great team, there are specific tasks that need to be done very well. The word “talent” describes what is required in order to achieve each of these tasks with...
The Great Eight: Trust
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) As I write this post, there are 6,289 books on trust available under the Business and Money category on Amazon. What can we possibly add to all that wisdom? Maybe nothing. But please...
The Great Eight: Communication
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) Communication is truly one of the key characteristics of great teams. Effective communication is rarely identified as a strength in the teams I’ve had the privilege to observe over the...