Groups, like people, go through different stages in their development. It’s important to understand where a group is in that lifecycle before trying to shift that group’s behavior. There’s been a lot of work trying to articulate the different stages of group development. I want to discuss four models here: iScale Network Lifecycle and Assessment Drexler / Sibbet Team Performance Model MG Taylor Stages of an Enterprise Bruce Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing (my model of choice) Different models have […]
Month: November 2011
My Trip to the Pacific Northwest
I was up in Portland and Seattle last week for a bunch of meetings, and I had a chance to have many wonderful conversations with some old and new friends and colleagues. Here are three takeaways from my trip: 1. Groups with soul and purpose. In Portland, I had a chance to catch up with Jelly Helm, who has devoted his life to telling stories about organizations with purpose. Jelly was preparing for his upcoming potlatch, and while showing me […]
Will the Values of Millennials Save Us?
As Rebecca mentioned, while at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, we watched an inspiring talk by Molly Graham, Manager, Culture and Employment Branding at Facebook. Molly re-framed the Millennial generation, helping us to see that some of their stereotypical qualities, which are often perceived as negative, have actually been critical in creating their highly adaptive, change-loving, super successful company. Describing Facebook as a Millennial company, because of its values of building trust, focusing on impact, moving fast, being bold, and being open, Molly […]
Five Enterprise 2.0 Superheroes
Kristin and I spent the week at Enterprise 2.0. To be transparent, while we were both looking forward to connecting with inspiring friends and colleagues, we also came with a bit of trepidation. What if this conference was all technologists having highly technical conversations about architecting new tools? While we love a well-designed collaboration tool, we do what we do because we are inspired by creating thriving cultures, high-performing collaborations, achieving the unimaginable, and redefining the way work gets done to bring people alive. […]
Skillfully Resolving Paradox
One of my favorite blogs is PsyBlog, which posts juicy tidbits about the latest research in psychology. As useful as I generally find it, I couldn’t help but laugh at a recent post entitled, “Can you get things done without making people hate you?” It cited research that found that assertiveness was necessary to get things done, but higher levels of it had diminishing returns. In other words, if you weren’t assertive enough, no one would pay attention to you. […]