Published in WorkMatters·3 days agoGoogle’s Project Oxygen, Part 1: From No Managers to Great Managers and Key BehaviorsHow and why Google identified the makings of great managers — Google’s Project Aristotle, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, was a research project on team effectiveness. It was preceded by a similar project (code-named Oxygen) that looked at manager effectiveness. It’s Project Oxygen I would like to focus on today. …Google3 min readGoogle3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Mar 142022 in Review: Normative Ethics, Business Ecosystems, and Future StudiesThe top-3 stories from WorkMatters in 2022. — Happy New Year! Here are the most popular stories from 2022: 1. Normative Ethics I don’t usually write about ethics. But when I do, it becomes the most popular thing I’ve ever written. Normative Ethics: Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics was actually published in Aug 2021. It appeared on Medium a few months…Ethics2 min readEthics2 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Mar 7Project Aristotle: Conversational Turn-Taking, Social Sensitivity, and Psychological SafetyHow Google discovered that psychological safety was key to team effectiveness. — Project Aristotle was a research program that Google ran from 2012 through 2014. It aimed to answer a seemingly simple question: “What makes teams effective at Google?” 1. Conversational Turn-Taking The project covered some 180 “highly interdependent” teams across engineering and sales. “Effectiveness” was measured using both qualitative and quantitative metrics. The researchers…Google3 min readGoogle3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Feb 27Good Ideas are Plausible, Non-Obvious, and IdiosyncraticWhy good ideas don’t need NDAs. I want you to read Dan Siver’s Ideas are just a multiplier of execution. It’s a 2-min read. I’ll wait. . . . A few comments: 1. Good Ideas are plausible Too often, people introduce themselves by saying they’re an “ideas person”. While they may mean to indicate that…Innovation2 min readInnovation2 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Feb 19Energy Audits: Red/Green, 80 Percent, and Weekly HabitThree easy steps to improve happiness and engagement at work. — On a scale from 1 to 10, are you happy at work? “1” means that you find every minute of every day a royal pain in the ###. “10” means that work is an absolute joy; all day, every day. I’ve met a few people who seem to really love…Personal Productivity3 min readPersonal Productivity3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Feb 13Management, Authority, and Control on the Human Side of EnterpriseIt’s been 60+ years since McGregor wrote the Human Side of Enterprise. These are three of my favorite quotes. — Douglas McGregor was a founding faculty member of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College. He’s known as one of the most influential management thinkers of all time, responsible for models such as Theory X and Theory Y on workplace motivation (see #168). …Human Side Of Enterprise3 min readHuman Side Of Enterprise3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Feb 6Continuous Improvement for Teams: Premortems, Retrospectives, and FeedforwardsThree popular practices to help teams continuously improve the way they work. — We live in a world of constant and continuous change and teams should continuously improve how they work to remain relevant. Here are three popular practices to do just that: 1. Premortems Imagine your upcoming project has failed. …Continous Improvement3 min readContinous Improvement3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Jan 30Haier EMCs: Customer Scenarios, Business Ecosystems, and Leading TargetsEach week I share three ideas to help you build better organizations. This week, those ideas are all about scenario thinking. This article was originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on Nov 25, 2022. The term Enterprise Micro-Community or EMC originates from Haier’s Rendanheyi model. …Haier3 min readHaier3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Jan 23Relational Alchemy: Using Love to turn Gold into PlatinumEach week I share three ideas to help you build better organizations. This week, those ideas are all about love and relationships. Originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on Nov 11, 2022). I’ve enrolled in a coaching program which means I’ve been exposed to some (for me at least) unusual…People3 min readPeople3 min read
Published in WorkMatters·Jan 18Strategic Wandering: Pathfinding, Planning, and NonlinearityEach week I share three ideas to help you build better organizations. This week, those ideas are all about strategy and uncertainty. (This article was originally published in the WorkMatters newsletter on Nov 4, 2022). I’d like to connect a few dots today. The topic is strategic wandering and tweets…Strategy2 min readStrategy2 min read
