I was talking with a former client the other day about her recipe for getting what she wants from co-workers. It’s pretty smart! Jadie was making requests, and she was tracking the responses the way Jeffrey taught her in his MBA class. Her success rate (the % of her requests for which she received actionable […]
I did a survey in one organization. The two places most managers wanted performance improvements were (1) communication, and (2) accountability. OK, no surprise there. Better communication and more accountability would make a manager’s life easier, right? But 6 months later, guess what they hated most… Communication about accountability. Dave, a mid-level manager, said on the comments […]
A colleague called, sounding ½ angry and ½ upset and said he thought I was supposed to attend a professional meeting last week. No, I told him, I’ve got a book to write and will not be attending those anymore. He growled, “I thought you were going to support us until you retired.” I am retired […]
People are mad that Elaine avoids work – and sick of her “good excuses”. There are two different views about what their manager, Beth, should do: She should meet with Elaine at the start and end of every day to check on whether she’s doing her assignments or not. She should give assignments to everyone […]
How much time do we spend waiting for other people to do something? I know a guy who just had a new floor installed in his house, and he was waiting to hear from the installer about completing the job. The moldings that connected the floor – a beautiful bamboo – to the carpeted areas […]
Meredith Fineman titled her article, written in September 2013, “Please Stop Complaining About How Busy You Are”. I looked it up recently, after listening to a colleague go on – and on – about how many appointments he had, how many deadlines, and how many staff had been cut in his organization. He told me […]
Dear Everybody, I’m at a conference in San Francisco this week. I’ll be presenting at the Conference for Global Transformation, then visiting relatives, then skibbling around the city with my sister for a few days. While I’m away, it’s your turn to practice some stretch exercises with The Four Conversations. I recommend that you try […]
There is one last piece to the motivation story. It’s about what happens when people agree to do something by a certain time, then don’t do it and don’t let you know in advance that they aren’t going to be able to do it. These people have learned – from their parents, teachers, and bosses […]
We have found that ALL attempts at motivation involve either Understanding Conversations or Performance Conversations, or some combination of the two. When you think about it, that’s really remarkable. No matter what you are trying to get done, or whom you are trying to get to do it, every single attempt at motivation we have […]
This will be a multi-part post about “motivation”, i.e., getting people into action. Here’s the starting point: What does it take to get people to do what needs to be done? How do you get people into action? Why are people not doing what they are assigned? We often get these questions from managers who […]
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