Push People to Make Them Go
..out the door. People want to do well. Where we have consistently poor performance and turnover in a team, we must look at our own …
Nobody says “Do successful”
“The trick to being successful is to be successful.” Nobody ever says, “Do successful.” Yet most of the time we think, “If I do this, …
Or Don’t Play
Win-win is one of the four major ingredients of success for whatever success you want. “Win-win” is shorthand for “win-win-or-don’t-play.” Or, “Let’s agree to find …
You Simply Can’t Know
We often are baffled by other people’s behavior. And we rush to ascribe the causes. Yet in trying to figure out why she did this …
Fail So You Can Win
Despite admonishments to “fail early, often, and well,” we would much rather avoid failure altogether. We fear failure. Practical philosopher Peter Koestenbaum says that we …
When You Don’t Know What’s Next
The fuel for the engine of your Effectiveness System is knowing the next step for each project/desired outcome. Knowing the next step tames daunting projects. …
How to Clear Lingering Tasks
We waste time and energy on lingering tasks. They distract and drain us until we finally deal with them. If we have a task that …
Statements and Questions
Thinking we have to be strong–or at least to look strong or to look like we know something–we make statements. We make our case. We …
Have and Eat Your Cake
We are so accustomed to constraints that we often accept them without question. Statements containing the conjunctions but or or slip by us easily and …
Delegation Fail
Traditional delegation, whether by telling, pleading, bribing, or manipulating, does not work for very long. That’s because our job is not to get people to …