Building a great organization–one that is sustained, meaningful, rewarding, and valuable–doesn’t necessarily mean building a large organization. Living a wonderful life–one filled with freedom, happiness, growth, and creativity–doesn’t necessarily mean living a large life. Now that we have that out of the way, good leader, what’s to stop you from building a great organization and […]
(Spoiler: neither is good.) We can limit the health and growth of our companies by treating them like a club or like a prison. In a club, things are fun and free but very little is structured, communication is strictly informal, and behavior norms match those of the leader–quirks and all. Growth stops because we […]
There are three poisons that, left unchecked, will seriously damage our companies: blame shifting, waiting to be poked, and win-lose. Blame shifting includes defensiveness, making excuses, throwing others under the bus, and complaining. Waiting to be poked is the tendency to wait for others to initiate and follow up on work. It includes hiding behind […]
We can diagnose whatever ails any organization by asking four questions. To what extent does everyone (in or close to the organization) know and understand the same complete and compelling story about why the organization exists and what its goals are? How committed are people (in or close to the organization) to the rule, “I win […]
Adopting a new system for organizing ourselves can be daunting. We can do it with ease, though, if we follow two principles, watch out for three traps, and adopt seven habits, one at a time. And we can get going immediately with a quick-and-dirty start-up method. Two driving principles Record every task that you could/might/should do in such a […]
Every organization, division, or program goes through four stages, in order: Conceive: find something compelling in out clients’ lives that needs fixing and commit to fixing it. Launch: figure out how to fix it for a few clients; keep trying it, learning, improving, and trying it again. Flow: find more clients who need the solution […]
In the previous post, I said that organizations often fail because they are focused on the wrong things. Symptoms include people arguing over how something gets done, who decides things, and when things get done. Here is a related symptom of the same problem: protracted arguing over which ideas, projects, strategies, and investments should be […]