by Guy Harris Team cultures develop for many reasons. Some factors affecting team culture include: Recent team history The style makeup of team members The type of work the team does  The physical location the team is in  How the leader interacts with the team as a whole How the leader interacts with individual team

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Communication, conflict resolution and leadership, at times, resemble working as a lifeguard. In all these situations, you can, like a lifeguard, be in the position of approaching someone else when they are under distress because their needs are not being met. Picture a drowning man. He is flailing in the water. He is grasping at

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Many new leaders start their leadership journey with one, big question: “Where do I start?” It’s a great question with an answer that is often clouded by uncertainty, overwhelm, and, doubt. To help you sort out the answer to that question, I propose you ask three other questions on your first day as a new

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Tension between co-workers is one of the more common sources of emotional “pressure” build-up for people. Left unaddressed for long enough, the pressure can reach a boiling point.  Fortunately, you can do something about it before the tension becomes a major conflict. 1. Create opportunities for people to better understand and appreciate their behavioral differences

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“Problems in the workplace are often created not by what we do, but by what we fail to do.” -Aubrey C. Daniels – Bringing Out the Best in People “All problems become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them.” – William F. Halsey And one from me: Failure to confront a negative behavior

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Effective leaders are comfortable with paradox. They can call on skills and work in ways that seem to be contradictory. Dictionary.com defines paradox as “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.” As I study the field, I find many paradoxes associated with leadership. I see that developing the skills of a great leader

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Apology is a powerful — and often underused — conflict resolution tool. One reason for not apologizing that I often hear in my work with clients is the concern that apologizing either totally admits fault for the conflict or reveals a weakness. While those concerns may be legitimate in some situations, they are overblown in

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  One of the things I notice as I work with new leaders is a tendency to accept work practices and processes as fixed entities. In some cases, company procedures, processes and work practices are mandated from a level far removed from the front-line supervisor, and they are relatively fixed. However, in most cases, front-line

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Building a high-performing team is a complicated thing to do. There is no single formula or strategy for doing it. The number of combinations of personality dynamics, business demands, economic situations and other variables affecting your team is probably too long to fully describe. Despite the complexity and number of variables, there some principles and

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When I work with clients, I often see judgment driving much of the thinking during a conflict conversation. Rather than a genuine curiosity for understanding where the other person is coming from, one or both people judge the other person’s intentions. Here’s how I see the difference between these two attitudes: An attitude of judgment

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