Culture is a much-used word, at work and in our personal lives. And it’s usually over-complicated. In today’s episode, I’m sharing a story from my family’s past to help you better (and more simply) understand exactly what culture is and isn’t. Tweet it out: Culture doesn’t come solely from a big corporate push. It is

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When you think about what makes a high-functioning team (whether in person, remote or hybrid) really click, several factors come to mind. In our research for The Long-Distance Teammate,  we discovered one of the most important things that contribute to a really solid, trusting, team culture: a constant flow of feedback from and to our

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Have you ever had an employee who was a pain in the neck? One who you just didn’t like interacting with, and who created more work for you than everyone else? If you’re honest, the answer is yes. Don’t feel bad, every manager has, and we won’t ask the person’s name. Your secret is safe

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Birthdays. We all have them, once a year. What can/should/might we do to celebrate birthdays at work? Is that the role of the leader? How has this changed if the team is remote or hybrid? It is those questions (and more) that we will explore below, giving you things to consider, and possibly some things

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by Guy Harris In 20 years of working to help leaders grow their skills, I have yet to meet a leader who did not understand the need to be clear about their expectations with their team. I am not saying that I have never met a leader who had challenges in this area. I am

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How do you know when an employee is engaged? The usual answers include obvious signs like  participation in meetings and projects, high quality work product, and responsiveness to requests from the manager and teammates. All of that is true, and there’s a paradox at work. It involves the ability to stay more engaged by disconnecting

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When you have a hybrid team, some of your team works in the office, some work from home, and some work who-knows-where depending on the day. That can make it hard to create a cohesive team. It isn’t that the team intentionally doesn’t want to work with people who don’t share their workspace, or that

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One of the most common complaints about working on a virtual or hybrid team is, “People can’t brainstorm and collaborate the way they do in the office.” For many teams, this is a critical issue because the whole point of being in teams is to create a sum that’s greater than all of the talented

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by Kevin Eikenberry When thinking about team or organizational culture, often new and frontline leaders think the way they did as individuals – that culture is something for the C-Suite or senior management to think about.  Culture, they often think, is above their pay grade.  Yes, culture can be driven from the top-down, but it

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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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