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The Battle Trance Concept: Enforcing Collective Identity in Your Workplace Team

Posted on 01/26/2016 by ·
The Battle Trance Concept: Enforcing Collective Identity in Your Workplace Team by Laura Stack #productivity

"Within this moment I am for you, though better men have failed/I will give my life for love, for I am winterborn./And in my dying, I'm more alive than I have ever been/I will make this sacrifice, for I am winterborn." – Winterborn, by American rock band The Crüxshadows Here is the roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog The Battle Trance Concept: Enforcing Collective Identity in Your Workplace Team Recently, I ran across the battle trance concept: an idea well known in the military environment where I grew up, but only recently defined in psychology. Essentially, it involves the subsuming … [Read more...]

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Missing in Action: Coordinating with a Boss Always Out of the Office

Posted on 12/22/2015 by ·
Missing in Action: Coordinating with a Boss Always Out of the Office by Laura Stack

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." – John C. Maxwell, American author and speaker. Most managers do a decent job of wrangling their teams, maintaining training schedules, keeping track of projects, and providing the overall guidance their teammates require in order to complete their assigned projects—and typically, they do it in person, from the same location as their team. But in any large organization, you'll find the occasional leader who, through no fault of their own, isn't often around. (<--Click to Tweet.) Sometimes they just don't work in the same office as the rest of the team, or can't come in often for various reasons. This may include leaders who work from home, who have to travel constantly for work, who prefer a hands-off attitude, or … [Read more...]

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Stand-Up Guys: The Virtues of Standing Meetings

Posted on 12/15/2015 by ·
Stand-Up Guys: The Virtues of Standing Meetings by Laura Stack

"One of my favourite tricks is to conduct most of my meetings standing up. I find it to be a much quicker way of getting down to business, making a decision and sealing the deal." ― Sir Richard Branson, British businessman Here is the bi-weekly roundup of activity from Laura Stack’s blog, columns, podcast, and other featured articles. Scroll down to read the complete roundup of productivity resources to help you create Maximum Results in Minimum Time. This week on the Blog Stand-Up Guys: The Virtues of Standing Meetings In the white-collar world, sitting down all day is both a blessing and a curse. Sitting makes it a lot easier to focus our intellects, since we're basically in a resting but erect position; this also allows us to work interrupted for longer periods of time. But there … [Read more...]

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The Workplace Makeover: Revitalizing Your Team From Within

Posted on 11/24/2015 by ·
The Workplace Makeover: Revitalizing Your Team From Within

"My sun sets to rise again." – Robert Browning, 19th century English poet.  Who bears the responsibility for team productivity? (<-- Click to Tweet) Those with an employee's mindset—for whom work is just a way of getting a paycheck and paying the bills—might point the finger at their leadership. True, the managers and supervisors who direct our work do have a large stake in team productivity. But they don’t bear the responsibility alone. Admittedly, at some level, all of us do work so we can live in the manner to which we've become accustomed; but the happiest of us tend to be more fully engaged than our cynical co-workers. We're more likely to invest discretionary time into our jobs, because we apply an employer's mindset to our work, treating it as if we're stakeholders in the … [Read more...]

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Methods of Motivation: Adding Team Incentives to the Mix

Posted on 11/10/2015 by ·
Methods of Motivation: Adding Team Incentives to the Mix by Laura Stack

"When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful." – Eric Thomas, American motivational speaker.  One of the eternal quests of the modern business leader is the search for the Holy Grail of worker motivation—as if there's just one secret, one formula or recipe, that will instantly and permanently push a team's productivity through the roof. It's a nice fantasy, but you quickly learn that nothing works for everyone. Fortunately, most people respond well to intrinsic rewards, like pats on the back and public recognition, as well as the king of extrinsic motivation, More Money. But there's no panacea that invariably turns disengaged grumps into optimistic top performers, while still urging existing performers ever upward. As it turns out, our basic … [Read more...]

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Balancing Short-Term Tactics and Long-Term Strategy

Posted on 10/23/2015 by ·

How do you make sure today's actions are supporting the long-term goals? … [Read more...]

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The Perfect World: Helping Your Team Understand and Commit to Team Goals

Posted on 10/15/2015 by ·
The Perfect World: Helping Your Team Understand and Commit to Team Goals by Laura Stackn #productivity

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." ― Jim Rohn, American business and motivational speaker. In a near-perfect world—the type most people would love when they join a new company—a department, division, or team's leader would act purely as a facilitator, establishing the group's goals, communicating them plainly to everyone on the team, and clearing the way from the team's current location to their future destination. He or she would promote the team goals in a way that made it clear what each team member should expect, precisely what they needed to do, and how the tasks the team member accomplished moved the entire organization toward its ultimate goals. These near-perfect conditions do exist in some organizations I’ve worked. They aren't common, and they don't … [Read more...]

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Leadership by Consensus: The Self-Sustaining Team

Posted on 10/08/2015 by ·
Leadership by Consensus: The Self-Sustaining Team by Laura Stack #productivity

"Manage by exception. Only require reporting when there is a deviation from the plan." – Brian Tracy, American motivational and business author and speaker. There's an approach to business leadership call "Management by Exception," where the team leader allows their team or work group to go about its merry way without much in the way of guidance, intervening only when something goes seriously wrong. In most particulars, it's the exact opposite of micromanaging; and while it's a valid approach, I believe a manager should have an active role as a teammate as well as a leader, especially in these days of smaller, more flexible teams and lightning-fast execution. Indeed, in the modern business arena, the leader has a special role as a facilitator. He or she scouts ahead and clears a trail … [Read more...]

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Clear Expectations: Enhancing Your Team’s Sense of Satisfaction

Posted on 10/01/2015 by ·
Clear Expectations: Enhancing Your Team's Sense of Satisfaction by Laura Stack #productivity

"When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute." – Simon Sinek, British-American inspirational author and speaker. As I explain in my upcoming book Doing the Right Things Right: How the Effective Executive Spends Time, executives are no longer limited to the C-Suite of a company. Strictly defined, an executive is anyone who executes business strategy to benefit their organization. In our Brave New Business World (to paraphrase Aldous Huxley), the gap between leadership and workers has decreased significantly in recent years. But whatever the business conditions, it's always helpful to put your heart into achieving your team's goals. In part, this means helping make sure the whole team is willing, not just able, … [Read more...]

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A Bit of This, a Bit of That: The Method of Multiple Working Perspectives

Posted on 09/24/2015 by ·
A Bit of This, a Bit of That: The Method of Multiple Working Perspectives by Laura Stack #productivity

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." – Marcus Aurelius, ancient Roman philosopher. In many sciences, including fields as varied as archaeology, psychology, and geology, scientists conducting research use a perspective called "the method of multiple working hypotheses." In other words, they don't test just one idea at a time; they test several. They begin with multiple hypotheses that may explain the results they experience or have experienced in the past. Then they narrow down the field as they proceed. Sometimes they narrow it down so well they eliminate all their original hypotheses and have to generate more. As you tackle new tasks for your team, you can use a similar approach that I think of as "the method of multiple … [Read more...]

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