This is a quote from Jim Hart’s post in Harvard Business Review Blog titled In Tough Times, Help Your Team Remember Their Purpose:

In his book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For, Roy M. Spence Jr. writes something we have been coaching CEOs and executive leaders on for 30 years: “A real purpose can’t just be words on paper. It has to get under the skin of every member of your organization….If you get it right, people will feel great about what they’re doing, clear about their goals, and excited to get to work every morning.” This is especially important in turbulent times…

Very strong statement. Reminds of the idea of Vital Signs I write about a lot. And this:

And I think, this can also teach us a lesson as managers and leaders. There is no doubt that one of the most important things we need to do as managers and leaders is to communicate. But we have so many channels. Just using one of them for all our communications is not enough. We need to create the right mix and to send the right messages using the right tools. We need to remember that some people are listeners and some are readers. We need to remember that some people like to get all the information online (on a computer and all the time) and some prefer to do it offline (not on a computer and postponed to a different time).

Elad

Dire emergency bulletin!  Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, voting for this week’s Reel 13 contest will close today, Tuesday the 24th, at 4 PM.  Last week, our films were competing against each other; this week, “Be Like a Duck” has been thrown into the breach against two other films by people we don’t even know, and the race has been extremely tight.  “Be Like a Duck” and “Replay” have been trading the lead back and forth for days; yesterday, “Replay” pulled ahead for a pretty daunting lead.  But it’s not over yet!  If you, our lovely blog audience, will take a moment to vote and send the link for voting out to just a few friends, we can still take the coveted Saturday night slot on New York’s hugely popular Channel Thirteen.

To vote, just go to reel13.org.  Do it for America!  Do it for freedom!  Do it for ducks everywhere!  Do it because you’re bored at work!

And God bless you, every one.

Posted beseechingly by Keith

http://www.ogradyquinlan.com/

The O’Grady Quinlan Academy of Irish Dance was founded in 2005 when the Maureen O’Grady School of Irish Dance merged with the Quinlan Academy of Irish Dance. In 18 years, more than 2,000 students, male and female, have learned the art of Irish dance. Many of these students have competed in national and worldwide competitions, and have performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the PA Renaissance Faire, and Bethlehem’s Celtic Classic.

Not sure what level your child belongs in?

Sign your child up!

ESADE is all based on team work as we all know. However ESADE makes sure that the team work is not perfectly smooth and forms teams of 6-8 team members instead of the efficient 3-5. ESADE also ensures that the cultural and professional backgrounds are very diverse to make things even more tricky. This is done on purpose in my opinion but it has been extremely beneficial for our learning experience to be confronted with all those difficulties, different opinions, backgrounds, etc..

Another issue with team work is finding the time to meet and having the right tools to collaborate. Google docs and calendar, Yugma, Skype, Msn, etc. have been extremely useful but how about a tool that allows brainstorming for? I am still looking for the program or application that combines all the common online collaboration tools.

AND Google has done it again!!!

Check out the latest product of Google, called “Google Wave“. It is difficult to describe because it seems a little bit like a revolution on the web. It is an open source email service, wiki, blog, chat, collaboration tool, photosharing, IM, etc. in one! You don’t believe me? Have a look at this stunning piece of tool that is currently still in beta but will have an amazing future, of which I am sure! Check it out here.

I am curious what the feelings will be in 2 weeks when the first euphoria has settled but as of now it looks great! Create your own waves!

Calling all MC’s!

i made this track recently with aspirations to complete it with some dope rhymes, and then i thought i’d love to hear other folks have at it as well!

listen here:  www.jonsteinmeier.com (it’s called “the old times”)

so, if anyone wants to try it, you can record your fresh poetry over it (streaming on my site), and send it to me!

OR…if you’re not a rapper, sing a part over it!  i’d love to hear what melodic material people come up with.

HOW ABOUT THAT?!?!!

drop me a line at jonsteinmeier@gmail.com

i’ll be making my own in the meantime.

love,

j

When hiring and delegating assignments, you need to find the right person for the job.

In the early 1820s, the British government was contemplating sending an expedition to Burma with the objective of taking Rangoon. The Cabinet sent for the Duke of Wellington to ask which general he would recommend for the expedition.

“Send Lord Combermere,” the Duke replied.

“But we have always understood that your Grace thought Lord Combermere a fool.”

“He is a fool, but he can take Rangoon.”

The Duke of Wellington understood this lesson about finding the right man for the job. This is why they say, “Begin with the end in mind.” Though Lord Combermeme was no military genius, he could follow orders, and that is what was needed for this assignment.

Abraham Lincoln understood this. There were reports that the General U.S. Grant drank too heavily; some felt he might not be the “best” General for the job. But Lincoln liked Grant’s performance, and about his drinking Lincoln had this to say: “Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”

Define what needs to be accomplished, and go find the right person for the task, fool or not. We’re tempted to do the opposite: to go to any length to avoid a bad candidate and settling for the “safe” one.  But remember, as Peter Drucker notes in The Effective Executive,

“Whoever tries to place a man or staff an organization to avoid weakness will end up at best with mediocrity. Strong people always have strong weaknesses, too.”

the same thoughts have been in leaders heads over the last few years.

I have less staff and my boss still wants more – can I do it?

How can I get more out of the team without burning them out?

My turn over rate is so high I don’t know how to keep people these days!!

what’s the answer – simple to say but harder to do

Don’t do it – really just don’t

don’t burn out your team

don’t do it all because you can’t

don’t freak out and work longer hours and pass on the pressure

need some hints to get started??

try here  — http://tiny.cc/eqKwb

“Lead at work, every day and enjoy it”– Garry Wells

Have you ever hit a game-winning shot, scored the game-winning goal, or converted the game-winning touchdown?

How about setting a new Personal Record for swimming, running, biking, car, quad, or motorcycle racing while taking first place?

It feels good, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact, there are few things in life that will ever rival those feelings of accomplishment and the adrenaline rush that ensues. For the rest of your life, those moments will be remembered and often relived as you just love to tell those stories. Athletics have the power to evoke such an amazing feeling because they bring together a few main things in one place:

1. Competition – No one is letting you win or succeed. Actually there are plenty of people hoping you fail so that they can win instead.
2. Recognition – When you have the ball, or the wheel, or are on the track, it’s up to you. All eyes are on you whether it’s because you’re doing well or failing. When you succeed, they’re all cheering for you!
3. Public Pressure – You are not behind closed doors. As I pointed out in my blog asking Are you putting yourself out there for criticism? public pressure forces us to be good or embarrass ourselves trying.
4. It’s not easy – By definition, if everyone could (or even wanted to do it) there would be no competition. You worked hard to acquire the skills and talents you have, that brought you to that moment of victory. In other words, you’re doing something you are good at.
5. Exclusivity – You’re in front. Everyone else is behind you. Only 1 person can be in that position.

So what does that have to do with employee motivation and business building? Everything. If you can understand and appreciate that feeling and those emotions, you understand what motivates people.

Though I used sports as an analogy there are parallels to this feeling of accomplishment throughout our lives. Here are just a few other ones so you can see the universal appeal of accomplishment:

1. Getting the girl (or guy) – Especially if you had to take a risk to do so by approaching a stranger and your buddies were watching.
2. Closing the sale – Especially if you’re paid on commission and you’re in competition with either yourself to do better or to be the best in your group.
3. Buying a house or car or something of great value – Generally this provides a major sense of accomplishment as not everyone has the ability to do this (except for a few years during the mid 2000’s when anyone could get financed).
4. Winning a competitive bid – You proved that you are the best and it felt good.
5. Making a profitable stock transaction – You bought low, sold high, beat the market odds and beat all the “experts” while doing it.
6. Getting recruited – Instead of being “hired”, someone actively and aggressively sought you out because of your talents.

The list can go on and on… My underlying point is simply this – If you, as a leader and manager, can find a way to bring Competition, Recognition, Publicity, Exclusivity and a Challenge to your business, most people will rise to the occasion and LOVE their jobs because of it.

If you can remember back to those 2 hour practices, or twice a day camps in the summer (3 runs/day at cross-country camp), it was not always easy, fun, or painless. As a matter of fact, the majority of the time it wasn’t fun at all. However, human beings are generally willing to sacrifice and struggle through all of those obstacles because the rewards of success, particularly the feelings that come along with it, are worth it.

Again, though I use sports as my analogy, this lesson certainly isn’t limited to the sports arena so don’t let that prevent you from getting the point.

The other day in my office, I started to ask some of my team about their experiences with sports. Even the ones who “sat the bench” understood what I meant by that great feeling of accomplishment at hitting the game-winning home-run. Ironically, the one who admitted to being the bench-warmer instantly latched on to our current inter-office competition. Every day she gets so excited about it she tells me about every single customer she signs up for this program and then “trash-talks” me for not getting as many as her. She’ll even walk into my office to receive a high-five to commemorate her latest score. Talk about fun and excitement at work! What may be most impressive, is that for all intents and purposes, her job is “secretarial.” Something most of us would never consider to be competitive or exciting.

Let’s take this concept one step further. According to Marcus Buckingham in his book “First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently,” the primary motivator for most people at their job is not how much they make. The primary reason for someone leaving or staying at a job is their relationship with their direct superior (remember that coach you hated or loved?). Take a moment and recall some of your favorite stories about your life. How many of those were directly related to your income at that time? Even your stories of accomplishment at work are rarely simply “I got a raise.” The accomplishments you made to get that raise are what makes for a great story and the true sense of accomplishment. The raise was simply the reward (i.e. winning the game) for showcasing your talents.

So to take this concept full-circle, compensation should be tied to these competitions and other measures of success. This is why I’m not a fan of an hourly wage. An hourly wage does not incorporate a single one of the 5 items that motivate people to make sacrifices for success. Admittedly, several of my team members are at least partially compensated hourly. The biggest problem with this is obviously that it breeds complacency. Once you’re used to getting that $10/hour, you are no longer motivated to keep working hard to get it. It’s a given; it’s guaranteed; all you have to do is show up.  What kind of motivator is that???

Great coaches, great leaders, and great managers find ways to motivate their team members to do their best by rewarding them for their talents.

To your “motivational” success, Bryan

P.S. Since you’re the coach of your team, make sure your competitions and motivators encourage both individual and team performance.

Why do so many managers repeat the same mistakes and why don’t they do the things that would make their and their peoples’ lives easier, happier and more productive?

Three mistakes that waste billions and cause untold misery and harm include:
1. paying bonuses and incentives, specially individual rewards.
2. sending people on courses, but not helping them to implement their learning.
3. surveying employees, but instead of acting on the results, surveying them again (and again) and in more detail.

There is compelling evidence that these three things demotivate and disengage people. Research also shows what does engage and motivate people and does create sustained value. These things are simple, if not easy.

In 1967, Peter Drucker said, in “The Effective Executive”, that “The effective executive focuses on their own contribution, which, by itself, supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations:
1. Communications
2. Teamwork
3. Self-development
4. Development of others”

In 1999, Curt Coffman, in “First Break All the Rules”, cites Gallup’s famous twelve questions that determine profitable engagement, of which the first four are:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the right materials do my job well?
3. Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition for good work?

In 2009, David Macleod, in his UK Government report “Engaging for Success”, found (again) that people are motivated and engaged when:
1. They know where the organisation is going and their role
2. They have engaging managers who communicate clearly and give them timely, reinforcing feedback
3. They have a real voice that is listened to when giving bad news as well as good.
4. There is real integration of stated values and observed behaviours

So a quick insight is that there are simple things that work when you do them and there are things that cause real, enduring damage.

The things that do the worst harm are rewards, courses without implementation and surveys without action. I will look at each of those in detail later, but for now, I will just note that these three things seem relatively easy to make happen and give the early impression of positive action, even though they lead to negative effects later. They also get ever more complicated and worse, the more that managers try to make them work.

The things that bring the greatest benefits are all simple, but demand constant self-awareness and sensitivity to others, sustained discipline and resolution. They also require sufficient self-confidence to be able to enthuse and trust others and to be persistent and patient enough to allow the results to mature, blossom and bear fruit.

There are some leaders who do consistently do the right things and whose firms and people thrive. Some of them achieve fame and fortune and others succeed quietly. There are plenty of examples when we seek them, but even so, there are many more managers who hear the stories, who read the reports, who note the principles, but continue to mislead themselves and others by not following the examples, integrating the principles or implementing the learning. I wonder why?

In future posts I will suggest some reasons why well-intentioned managers consistently harm themselves, their people and their organisations. It has to do with illusion, self-delusion, and mistaken focus on the past and on possession. The best leaders keep very aware, focus on the future and act positively.

 TEAMWORK-WEIHNACHTS-AEROBIC

findet am Samstag, 12.12.2009

ab 13.00 Uhr

im Sportstudio Delia statt!

(Berliner Straße 67 / 16540 Hohen Neuendorf)

www.delia-frauenfitness.de

Eingeladen* sind alle**

Delia- und Teamwork-Mitglieder, sowie Freunde, Bekannte, Gäste und alle MÄNNER!

*Anmeldungen für Gäste werden unter sport.info@gmx.de oder telefonisch im Delia unter (03303) 21 55 80 erbeten!

**Die Teilnahmegebühr in Form von weihnachtlichem Kuchen – Keksen – Plätzchen etc. ist vor Ort am 12.12.2009 zu entrichten und wird vorher von den Trainern auf Tauglichkeit überprüft und nach dem Kurs von allen Teilnehmern gemeinsam verzehrt!

Kaffee und andere Getränke können am Tresen erworben werden.

Viel Spaß und ein frohes Fest wünscht

Euch Euer Trainer-Team!

When the team comes through with the final delivery of their product –  much has transpired prior to that delivery.  Like the design, the packaging, and the marketing. When delivery does take place it’s the  finishing touch for the whole team. Check out the finishing touches on these deliveries !   

- Renaissance Publishers & Art

Last night, Katie and I had our weekly date night. We spent it at Montana Avenue, a favorite of ours. Wow.

Anway, I can still taste the ribeye. Just sayin. While there, we talked about many things, but we talked about what we are excited about for the holiday season. Thought I’d share some of those things:

• This is Ashton’s first thanksgiving and Christmas, not that he will remember them, but it is always fun.
• We will have a house full on Thanksgiving, 15 adults and 11 kids. Love packing out our house.
• Grilling our turkey. I know that people passionately push deep frying and bags on me, but nothing beats grilling a turkey.
• We’re getting a Wii. Really excited about this.
• My family is coming out for Christmas. Love having them in our house and love having them at Revolution when I preach. I think you would have to see my teenage years to appreciate the true irony of this.
• Celebrating the Advent season as a church. This will be a first for Revolution, but starting November 28th we will take time in each of our services to read through the Advent season. Great way to focus on this season.
• Doing a wedding on Sunday. Love being a part of people’s lives for the highs and lows, it is one of the greatest parts of my job. Weddings fit into the highs category.
• This Christmas will mark 1 year that Paul and Jennifer have been at Revolution. It still blows my mind that they joined us and so excited about what God is doing through them on our team.
• Putting up our tree the day after thanksgiving. Ava would already have it up if she got to decide, but we told her we had to wait, at least until the day after thanksgiving.
• Spending the month of December reading several books on teamwork.
• Okay, that has nothing to do with the holidays, but will be crucial to Revolution in 2010 and beyond. Our structure is shifting with our growth. Trying to see beyond our next steps to what our team needs to look like.
• Christmas music.
• Okay, that was a complete lie.
• Winterhaven, love taking the kids there.
• Having a week off between Christmas and New Years. This is one of my favorite breaks of the year, so crucial to be at full steam starting in January. We experience are second largest growth in February.
• You read that right Revolutionaries, so be ready for an explosion in February.
• Lamb on New Years Eve with Todd and Alicia. So good.
• January, we will embark on our largest and most important series ever at Revolution. It will literally set the stage for the next 5 years as a church.
• Hearing how God is moving in the lives of those who are doing the 90 day tithing challenge at Revolution. Over 25% of our church is participating. Can’t wait to hear how God is working in their lives during the 90 days.
• Having three times as many people at our Christmas Eve service this year as we had last year.
• What God is doing at Revolution is not normal and I never want to get used to seeing him work. I love being able to pray with people, challenge them and see them take steps in their journey back to God.
• Never gets old.

Those are some things I’m excited about. What are you excited about?

A little over a year ago, we were in the planning stage of our latest venture. We were planning on buying DVD vending machines, like the Redbox machines, and placing and servicing them in the Boise, Idaho area. We did all of our product research, and found locations that would be interested in having the machines. I built a website, and prepared all of the contracts. Over the course of the year we ended up purchasing 9 machines and over 2500 DVDs. Almost exactly one year later, my portion of the business has all but closed, and my loss to this company was tremendous. The reason that I share this with the world is not to discourage you from trying new things, but to explain to you why I failed, so that you can learn from my mistakes. Like they say, the smartest people are those who learn by the mistakes of others.

Before I talk about why I failed, I would first like to briefly explain why failure is good. The reason that failure is good is three fold. One, if you don’t fail that means that you did not try anything. Some people are so afraid of failure that they do not try. I personally fear regret more than failure and am motivated by it. Second, every time that I fail I know in my heart that when I succeed I will appreciate it that much more. It is like experiencing heartbreak before love; the feelings are that much more intense and appreciated. Third, I learn valuable things from each failure that I can build upon. I learn my strengths and weaknesses which can be replicated or strengthened. I look at each failure as a really expensive college course, only this college course is self taught in a “hands on” approach. Unfortunately this last venture could have paid for 2 years at Harvard, but that is just fine.

Anyway, YES, I failed at this last venture. I was so sure that this venture was going to take off from the start and be profitable that I overlooked a few key elements that would have made it successful. Here they are in list format.

1. The lack of forecasting accurate projections. It is a great thing to be optimistic, but letting your optimism replace the absolute need to calculate accurate projections, can be detrimental to your attempt to catch success. I figured that as long as I knew I would succeed there was no reason to do work to show it. I realize now that I should have looked at the projections as more of an evidence based road map to the success. Had I done a little more research, I would have seen that my optimistic projections were anything but accurate.

2. Reinforcing strengths with a partnership, but not covering weaknesses. I chose to organize as a partnership, which was not the problem, but I failed to realize that my partner and I had the same strengths and the same weaknesses. The strengths were over covered and the weaknesses remained uncovered, so important things like detailed record keeping and billing were not handled appropriately. It would have been a good idea to have gone in with a third partner who was weak in our strong qualities and strong in our weak qualities. This is one of the most important lessons…cover everything.

3. Getting in too deep, with little financial wiggle room. This would seem like a very simple lesson, but I am telling you that when money is moving you start to think emotionally, and that can be disadvantageous if important elements are overlooked. If I could go back to the beginning I would have bought only a few machines and tested them in different markets until I had a working system. Our problem is that we placed our first two machines and then were offered a “great deal” on 7 more, that emotionally we felt was too good to pass up. So we spent another $25,000 dollars, when that money should have been used to work our current machines.

4. Not having a valid product support system set up. I did a whole lot of research on the machines in the beginning, but not enough on the system supporting the machines. Since we did not have any knowledge of the intricate working parts of each machine, it was necessary for us to call upon those who did when we had a problem with a machine. The support system for our machines consisted of one man on the other side of the country, who had very little understanding of work ethic and responsibility. The lesson is that you can have the Cadillac of a product, but if there is no one to fix it when it is down, all you have is a broken product and no income.

5. Focusing too much on the busy work, and not enough on the meat and potatoes. I have noticed that this is a common trend in a lot of sales jobs. The work that will make you the money is the work that is the most uncomfortable…sales. If I would have spent half as much time on sales as I spent on web design and contract writing, we would have ended up in a very different position.

I know that a lot of these things may sound pretty obvious, but in the heat of the moment when money is moving and contracts are being signed, you tend to forget things. There is a rush of excitement that if you cannot pacify will take your rationale. These elements that I have described above do not scare me, I think about them everyday while we work on our current projects. I know that whether it be 0 failures down the road or 100, we will learn from every mistake and eventually come out victorious. I know that you can do the same thing as long as you look at your failures objectively and are not fearful of learning from them.

-Scott

In teamwork, silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly.

- Mark Sanborn

Recently, one of our long-term client relationships sponsored a forum in New York City on innovation of company culture through design. While I wasn’t able to attend, I did get my hands on some great notes from a friend.

Design of function has evolved to be much more in the center of technology, business and people. Innovation now flows from all these points of view and enables design to flourish in a real way. With this in mind, these guidelines for action should drive design:

Differentiate: Set yourself apart from your competitors.

Simplify: Offer efficiencies and help the supply chain support the customer.

Innovate: Don’t simply be an observer. Set imperatives around insights and you will create a cycle for new solutions, moving from abstract to concrete. People will come along with you.

As a designer of the function, your focus is different. Engineers start with technology. Business minds and venture capitalists start with the money side—profits. Design starts with the people side and then moves into thoughts of technology and profit. As a function and process designer, you are always thinking about what people want as your key driver, or at least you should be.

Hire Renaissance employees who can see the big picture
There are three categories of knowledge bases that will categorize your team: “Silo-ed,” “T-shaped” and “Pie shaped.”

Silo-ed is the traditional type of employee. They have highly specialized expertise, which used to be desirable, but is now becoming less acceptable.

T-shaped employees have deep expertise in one area, but are collaborative.

Pie shaped team members have diverse combinations of experience like engineering + business or art + finance. They are quickly becoming the most desirable hires.

In my opinion, we should look for people who have broad perspectives, teamwork capabilities and maintain a balance of innovation and creativity. For example, a team should have financial modelers from the inception, showing the monetary impact of the design in addition to the creative side. Employees who have a passion for change and the ability to work with others are huge assets and can capture the “collective IQ.” Interdisciplinary collaboration yields real innovation—Fight “Silos!”

Conquer the fear of failure
If team members come from the business perspective that “they do not wish to look stupid,” they will narrow decisions, dooming them from the start. Research shows that people fall into 2 kinds of intelligence:

Entity Theory: Every encounter you have is a measure of IQ. One works hard not to look stupid.

Development Theory: One seeks out those challenges as a way to learn and the values it bring.

How can we encourage risk taking while balancing finances? There’s a need to accept failure as a part of change. Position the innovation as a “learning launch” with management. It is an experiment that we expect to learn from and change. This gives freedom, helps prevent failure from capital “F” emphasis to a small “f” acceptance and can yield real successes.

Round Up
Maybe we all should be thinking more about what we can do to make design innovations in the organization and our people more innovative?

*Panel discussion moderated by Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future with Bill Moggridge, 2009 Lifetime Achievement National Design Award Winner, co-founder of IDEO, Sam Lucente, Vice President of Design, Hewlett-Packard Company and Jeanne Liedtka, Professor, University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business

___________________________________________________________________________

Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.

Researchers, We’re writing today to give you another shot at applying for Enterprisers. Due to the success of the October course we’re running another Enterprisers this January from the 11th – 15th Jan 2010. We thought that you guys also might have friends who would benefit from this amazing course. Maybe you know someone who has a Newcastle University degree but is having trouble finding work, or who has been affected by the economic downturn.

Please remember that eligibility is restricted to Newcastle University Graduates (i.e not current students). See our full eligibility statement by scrolling down to ‘how do I apply’.

Please cascade this flyer to your friends and family from Newcastle University and remember they can find out more here or by emailing me at c.a.m.kennedy@ncl.ac.uk

You can have a nosey at some pictures from the last Enterprisers here

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any further questions or queries or if I can help in any way.

Best wishes,

Ciara

Throughout my week I have found a common theme of the importance of social cooperation as a tool in learning.  While on an academic level it is obvious which subjects are taught in school: math, science, reading, etc – there are also subjects taught which are hidden, but not any less valuable.  These subjects, cooperation, conflict resolution, and team building, prepare students for their later roles in society as adults.  These social skills not only teach students to work together and to cooperate, but also show the influences that students can have on one another.  After all, who is a stronger influence than one’s own peers?

In Arthur Ellis’ Teaching, Learning, & Assessment Together, he touches on the importance of both personal and social competence.  Personal competence is the obvious ability to regulate and be aware of one’s own actions.  Social competence is the understanding, developing, and assisting of other students in one’s classroom or environment.  It is the social skills of influence, communication, conflict management, leadership, cooperation, building bonds, and team capabilities that incorporate a student into a meaningful part of a group.  (Ellis, 2001, p. 51)  These social skills have tremendous impact on a student’s reflective thinking capability.  If a group of students cannot function as a socially cohesive unit they will be unable to complete a group assignment.  If, on the other hand, the students can work together, they are likely to even inspire each other to do well on the assignment at hand as they spark one another’s interests and debate amongst themselves.

Johann F. Herbart in The Ethical Basis and Aim of Instruction expresses the importance of cooperation between students in order to be useful in society.  He states, “…every pupil, whatever rank or social status, must be trained for cooperation in the social whole to fit for usefulness,” (Herbart, 1776, p.1).  Booker T. Washington touches on the importance of cooperation and friendship in his exposition “On Achieving Social Equity” from the Atlanta Exposition Address in relation to the equality between races and what each can stand to gain from the other.  Washington speaks of the benefit of sharing unique knowledge and information with others in society in order to create the most “useful and intelligent citizen…Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest,” (Washington, 1895, p.2).  He asserts that if social skills are used to build one another up, rather than teach each other down, lives and communities will be enhanced by this new knowledge acquisition.

Finally, in Foundations of Education by Allan Ornstein and Daniel Levine, it was once again reiterated to me the importance of socialization of children to prepare them for adulthood as.  While “school culture” may be the most formal of settings in which children learn, it is one of the most content-rich.  Alongside long division and sentence structure, students are taught to participate in the democracy of a classroom.  Students learn to follow the “rules of order” that prevail in the class and come to interact with their peers in appropriate and beneficial ways.  Students work together to accomplish grander things than most could do on their own, and learn that it is only through compromise and cooperation that these accomplishments come to pass.

While each text I read this week had a distinct purpose and direction, I continually perceived hints back to this idea of the importance of a social life amidst students’ learning.  One of the most important things children learn in school is how to interact with others, whether it is with their teachers or other students.  When students can learn to work together they begin to discover the mutual benefits of cooperation.  This interfacing between students of different cultures and communities is important in helping students understand and appreciate their differences.  “Peers are equal in a way parents and their children, or students and their teachers are not,” (Ornstein & Levine, 2008, p. 298).  Students have a great amount of personality and learning to experience together, and when they do, they are developing skills that will be used throughout their lifetime.  One of the most essential attributes students develop in school is that of good citizenship.  By preparing students to work together in teams, make compromises, and motivate one another, they will be ready to head confidently into the democratic society in the world today.

Citations:

Ellis, Arthur K. (2009) Teaching, Learning, & Assessment Together. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Herbart, Johann Friedrich.  (1776) Outlines of Educational Doctrine.  Translated by Alexis F. Lenge. (New York: The       Macmillan Company, 1901).

Ornstein, Allan C. & Levine, Daniel U.  (2008) Foundations of Education.  Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.  Tenth Edition.

Washington, Booker T.  (1895) selections from Atlanta Exposition Address.  “On Achieving Social Equity”

For some teams, the iterative design process has gotten out of control. Instead of focusing on how to make a product or service better, the process has turned into an approval monster. ZURB hopes to change that with Notable, a web-based app that allows teams to give direct feedback to each other. “Notable was created to solve the feedback problem in companies,” says Dmitry Dragilev, ZURB’s marketing lead. Dragilev says the company created this application to fight the philosophy of getting approval and a move toward helping teams make something better.

The tool allows everyone to provide feedback and stay in the loop with a design’s progress, as well as archiving the design’s history. You can control who can see and leave feedback on each captured design. For example, a project manager could share one page with the copywriter, another with the whole team and yet another with the developers. The feedback occurs multiple ways, instead of one-way.

For example, let’s say I open a Notable account for the meryl.net web site. I work with a designer and a blog app expert; we’re all web workers living in different states. I capture different pages on my web site to highlight the current problems and identify ways to improve them, as the screenshot below shows.

While I could use my screenshot application to get a snaphot of the page to make comments on, Notable works faster. With a screenshot app, I’d capture the web page. Then, I would use the application’s drawing tools to add call outs. Notable takes care of everything for you. All I have to do is click and enter notes.  This video shows the process of capturing and annotating a site.

Notable offers a Firefox plugin for capturing any web page, which is especially helpful for those pages stuck behind logins. I grabbed Facebook pages and other password-protected pages with the plugin. You can also capture pages from a URL from within Notable, use a special URL formula to capture a web page (for example, www.notableapp.com/www.webworkerdaily.com would capture the home page of this site), download the iPhone app, or upload an image.

I can send my notes for one page to the designer and notes from another page to the blog expert. Or I can send it to both. Notable gives you control on what feedback and notes you share with others, and you can remove someone from the discussion after the fact. The designer and blog expert can capture their own pages to add notes or leave comments on my notes.

In this case, I have a workspace called “meryl.net” for the meryl.net redesign project. I can organize the pages into three sets: one for the business section of the site, one for games and one for the pages about deafness, as the next image shows.

Notable sends email notifications whenever someone adds notes and shares them. You can control who receives the notification to be able view the specific page and leave feedback. Permissions are also available on a per-set basis.

You can also see different views of each page. You not only view the design, but also you can see and post annotations on the code (the underlying HTML code of the page), the copy (just the page’s copy, without any distracting visual elements) and search engine optimization (which lets you see the page’s structure for SEO purposes).

Currently, Notable works with Firefox and Safari. However, I could leave comments and view notes in Google Chrome — just not capture pages. One of the biggest benefits is that it cuts down on emails and confusion. The only emails you receive are notifications of new notes or updates, rather than a bunch of emails from different people on a project and trying to keep track of it all. Best of all, Notable is fun to use. While it works great for teams not working under one roof, but it’s suitable for those that do because the work is centralized and visible in one place.

Check out the use of Notable on the CNN and MSN home pages. A free plan is available that handles up to three users, 3 GB storage, one private workspace and the iPhone app. However, the free plan doesn’t come with enhanced security or private URLs. Other plans range from $24 per month up to $119 per month, based on number of users, storage size and other features. You can try any paid plan for 30 days with no obligation.

Have you tried Notable? What do you think of it?

In an article for Strategy + Business entitled The Promise (and Perils) of Open Collaboration, author Andrea Gabor identifies the challenges organizations face when they choose to adopt a collaborative work environment.   According to Gabor, the biggest obstacle for an organization is the deep change required in the way knowledge is controlled and shared — changes that have the potential to alter relationships both within the company and with its outside constituents. Anything short of total commitment, Gabor warns, is likely to lead to short-lived improvements and eventual failure.

For organizations considering open collaboration, Gabor recommends a clear-headed look at the challenges associated with the change and she identifies seven essential strategies to making it work including:

1. Creating a clear leadership message
2. Collaborating with customers
3. Building a culture of trust and open communication
4. Cultivating continuous improvement
5. Building a flexible innovation infrastructure
6. Preparing your organization for new skill sets
7. Aligning evaluations and rewards

The article points out that “open collaboration is a complex, all-embracing process, requiring genuine commitment from corporate leaders, a willingness to abandon many venerable corporate customs, and an appetite for unleashing and managing disruptive change across the organization.”  But Gabor also encourages organizations to move forward and continue to develop their approach to open collaboration, because for those that do there are great benefits as well.

Sometime today or tomorrow, be sure to read—or save, this article—it’s one of the best on collaboration that we’ve seen. 

And if you are looking for a little additional inspiration and insight on the subject, check out the on-demand webcast of Pass the Ball: The Power of Collaboration.  This is a presentation Ken Blanchard did together with Cisco WebEx in June as a part of their Pass the Ball initiative. Ken shares his thoughts on getting others involved, how a philosophy of “none of us is as smart as all of us” helps everyone accomplish more, and the difference between serving and self-serving behavior.

As we said earlier, procrastination is always named as a big time waster and I wrote about ways to deal with procrastination in Part 1. Here are two more strategies that you can use to reduce the likelihood of procrastinating items you really do want to handle.

1) Watch out for putting projects on your To Do list.

Most of us get in such a hurry that we start throwing all kinds of items on our To Do lists, items that actually are projects! Projects of course have multiple steps and, thus, when your subconscious mind sees a project on your list, it reminds you that there are many steps necessary, so you tend to procrastinate it.

Solution: Put the bite size of a project on your to do list, not the entire project.

2) Use action verbs on your To Do list.

Form the habit of writing an action verb to the left of each task you write on your To Do lists.

Example A: If you have “Budget” on your list, are you going to “Think” about the budget, “Plan” the budget, or “Talk” about the budget? Use the verb that describes what you want To Do when you make your note.

Example B: If you have Mom on your list, are you going to “Write” Mom, “Call” Mom, or “Think” about a gift for Mom? Use the verb that best describes what you want to do.

Notice that when you see the verb you wrote (next to the task you want to do), you’ll now looking at a bite size of a task and, thus, you’ll be less inclined to procrastinate the task.

These four strategies (the two here in Part 2 and the two in Part 1 below) are not perfect, but they will help you reduce the likelihood of procrastinating key tasks that you do want to do.

Does this make sense? Please let me know.

Terri's Family

In the Presbyterian Church I grew up in, the “midnight” Christmas service usually began at 7:00 p.m.  So, I didn’t argue when Terri announced that we were going to attend midnight mass at her family’s Ohio church.

At Terri’s Ohio family home, Christmas Eve festivities commence at around 4:00 p.m.  when everyone gathers for a cup of cheer followed by dinner.  I wondered about the strange looks, when at 6:30 I asked to be excused so I could begin getting ready for mass.  About 30 minutes later, showered, shaved and dressed, I was ready to go, only to discover that Midnight Mass really did begin at midnight.

Five hours later when we finally made it to the church, I had suffered through a hangover and had begun to celebrate again.  As we entered the pew, I noticed that the great Christmas carol Joy to the World was being sung but not joyous enough for me.  So, I quickly grabbed a hymnal, found the carol and joined in.  I had barely sung the first line when Terri’s dad grabbed me by the arm and Terri placed her hand over my mouth.  I was indignant about such treatment until I realized that only the choir, not the congregation was singing.

Two things you can learn from the previous story: first, in my exuberance, sometimes I overlook details; and second, evidenced by how fast I was grabbed, I don’t have a very good singing voice.

When I was younger, I believed that to succeed you had to be good at every aspect of your job.  So, I was defensive about mistakes, slow to take responsibility and reluctant to work with others.

In business circles you hear about teamwork.  I remember an instance when a man I worked for asked me to put together a group to achieve a difficult task.  He lectured me on the power of teamwork and challenged me to assemble a good team.  When I went to him with my recommendations on who should be on the team, he removed several names because their skills were different and he wasn’t sure they would be “team players.”  His concept of a team was for every member to be similar.  That’s analogous to a football team being composed of just one player position: if all you have are quarterbacks, who is going to block and who is going to tackle?

A few years back, my friend Mark Boggs and I volunteered to lead our church’s stewardship campaign.  Mark is an engineer and as such is very detail oriented with every “t” crossed and every “i” dotted.  Me, I’m a marketer.  I look for the big picture, the idea that will catch people’s attention.  Mark’s persistent focus on detail nearly drove me crazy.  Conversely, my willingness to overlook details had him climbing the wall.  However, Mark and I made a good team and we exceeded the fund-raising goal and our friendship had survived.

I realize, as I grow older, that not everyone is the same; we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  I know there are some things I do better than others.  And, understanding such compels me to associate with colleagues who have strength where I have weakness.  It is true that understanding your weaknesses and strengths leads to a willingness to merge with those with complementary skills.  Such a merger results in a combination – a team – with a great opportunity for success.

Teamwork

“Conflict is inevitable in a team … in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict.” – Susan Gerke, IBM, Leadership Development

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie