FieldNotes
Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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Show Respect by Asking Others to Go First
How team meetings begin sets the tone for the engagement, positivity, and energy shared by the group. How team meetings end shapes what the team will remember and solidifies team member commitment to next steps and actions. Yet, most leaders don’t think very strategically about these important time-bound bookends. As such, they miss a crucial…
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Powerful Beginnings and Endings for Team Meetings
How team meetings begin sets the tone for the engagement, positivity, and energy shared by the group. How team meetings end shapes what the team will remember and solidifies team member commitment to next steps and actions. Yet, most leaders don’t think very strategically about these important time-bound bookends. As such, they miss a crucial…
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“You Owe It To Yourself”
Leaders sometimes need to prod people to put their own interests above the expectations of others. These hard-working team members, colleagues and friends need a leader to remind them that sometimes it is okay to focus on their own needs and goals rather than putting others first. Leaders turn to a well-worn phrase to get
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Get Ready with a Lifeline of Optimism
On the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” contestants rely on “lifelines” when facing difficult questions. They can phone a friend, poll the audience, or eliminate wrong answers as a means of getting to the right answer. Effective leaders employ a similar strategy. Not for answering trivia. But rather for maintaining optimism. Sustained
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The Motivation to Help Others Succeed
The best leaders are highly motivated to help others succeed. The satisfaction they receive when others reach their potential and achieve great outcomes drives much of what they do as leaders. They are as proud of the accomplishment of those they lead as they are of their own performance and results. We would like to think that
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How Curious Are You Really?
Curiosity plays a pivotal role in innovation, exploring feedback, and making quality decisions. Many well-known leaders credit curiosity as the reason for their extraordinary success. Good leaders are naturally inquisitive people, which makes them better at building relationships and navigating situations they haven’t seen before. But are the best leaders truly curious, or is there
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Managing a Rules-Based Leader
Rules and authority matter a great deal to some leaders. Rules-based leaders find security in strictly following rules and comfort by deferring to authority. Because they deeply prize efficiency and respect authority, they allow established rules, policies, and hierarchy to guide their decision-making. This makes them highly consistent and predictable. But also somewhat rigid and…
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Code Words for Resistance to Feedback
People resist incorporating the feedback they receive by responding in ways that suggest they will make change when they really have no intention to do so. In yesterday’s Field Note, we discussed the response of Happy Talk to mollify leaders but avoid taking action. However, there are several other resistance strategies that leaders should be…
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When People Respond to Feedback with Happy Talk.
Good leaders are always on the lookout for happy talk and push through this resistance by being specific with their recommendations and by following up afterward to make sure the feedback has been considered and applied. Good leaders don’t fall for happy talk. They expect colleagues to take their feedback seriously and to make the…
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How Often Do You Use Your Strengths During the Workday?
Management consultants remind us that higher job satisfaction is commonly a function of well-known ingredients: high task diversity, a positive workplace climate, consistent recognition for good work, the flexibility to create a reasonable work-life balance, opportunities for advancement, highly connected relationships with colleagues, and competitive compensation. One other factor that research has proven to be…