Expand your horizon to influence and motivate others to actively build cohesive teams.
By Michael Holland - I needed to re-set my clock in my not-so-new car and had forgotten which buttons to push in sequence to get the clock flashing and ready for change. Rumbling through my glove box I pulled out the thick, black canvass bag which contained the owner’s manual. Well, actually it contained one [...]
By Michael Holland - Teams, teams, they are everywhere. Many think that just surviving together through the drudgery of the workweek makes the group a team. Many think that having a moniker – the senior leadership team, the accounts payable team, the special super-secret project team – creates a truly cohesive and functional team. The [...]
by Michael Holland - Manager Matt is two years into his 1st tour of duty as a leader. He’s survived the dark days of learning to manage on the fly with new situations when everything was new to him. He’s been through handling performance reviews and slow staff meetings, handled performance challenges and un-engaged peers, [...]
By Michael Holland - Looking back over the last three months, you can point to four specific times when you team was fully engaged, catching the perfect wave of energized synergy. The team was so productive during those times that the whole quarter was successful because of those highly effective windows. These are bright spots. [...]
by Michael Holland - In the movie Moneyball, Manager Billy Beane looks to rebuild his dismal baseball team with a limited budget and therefore limited opportunity to acquire expensive talent. He decides to gamble on a methodology to look deeply at what types of players and activity he needs to be successful, which brings him [...]
By Michael Holland - 15-year-old girls have perfected the art of dual communication. They nod appropriately to their parents as key parental instructions are put forth. Then in a moment the 15-year-old girl turns toward her friends and dramatically performs the full eye roll communicating her true feelings and commitment to her parents. Managers working [...]
by Michael Holland - In 1994 I made a classic management mistake. It involved a very stressful job, a struggling team, and two bags of marshmallows. The short version of the story is that a consistently tardy team member to critical team meetings received a barrage of marshmallows when he arrived late again to our [...]
By Michael Holland - During a summer evening on the Magothy River, one of the large rivers feeding the famous Chesapeake Bay, I witnessed a beautiful sailing race: 40 or 50 sailboats tacked back and forth along the river, each one maneuvering to catch the wind perfectly and take advantage of a competitor. From far [...]
By Michael Holland - Great leaders learn the art of crafting the story in which employees can place themselves. The story has historical underpinnings, heroes, villains, a bit of drama, obstacles to overcome and a goal to be achieved that is just beyond the capabilities of the team but is within reach. Great leaders give [...]
By Michael Holland - Your leadership mantra challenge for the rest of 2021 should be Bring Me Problems. We have so often heard the opposite phrase of don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. We are too busy to solve all these problems and we want our employees to stand on their own, figure things out, [...]
