If you have been following my work on organizational team effectiveness and efficiency, you may also have heard about the seven critical team attributes of productive, cohesive and resilient teams. The seven attributes are trust, communication, appreciation, behavior management, meeting management, creativity & ideation and problem solving & decision making. These aspects of team interaction have made such an impact, that the seven attributes have since been converted to a hands-on, team building facility called…

Organizations invest a great deal of money on coaching and development. In many cases, the prescription from management is the individual requires hours of coaching in order to “solve or correct the problem”. However, to accurately develop effective solutions, companies must employ more than just coaching as a primary strategy. According to an article in MindTools, coaching is a useful technique used in building skills, abilities and for boosting performance. It also helps bring out…

Curiosity – even the word by itself makes you wonder. Understanding the definition, curiosity is the desire to learn or know about anything. Another source says curiosity is the desire to learn or know something interesting because it is unusual. On any given day, individuals encounter a barrage of new and interesting information, the majority without even noticing: the sign on the billboard, the pendant on someone’s necklace or small print. However, there are some…

Working with a wide variety of organizational teams, I have noticed most tend to focus intensely on their immediate areas of responsibility and they struggle to find the right level of engagement with others. Sometimes individuals are too involved, which leads to accusations of “overstepping their boundaries.” While other times, individuals don’t get involved enough, leading to accusations of not being interested in “the bigger picture.” This fluctuating level of engagement can lead to organizational…