Ever considered how a simple set of Checklists can help your team and your new hires execute more consistently? High stakes industries such as aviation and healthcare, where lives are at risk and complexity is high, have been using checklists for decades to manage the basic human tendency to overlook key steps in a given …
Simplify To Streamline
I recently finished “Process!” by Mike Paton and Lisa Gonzalez; the latest notch in the ever-expanding EOS library catalyzed by the now iconic – Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman (2015). Process! Is the long overdue deeper dive into the third component of the EOS model for driving more predictable business outcomes (out of six total). …
Mastering Complexity with Checklists: Lessons from Atul Gawande’s “The Checklist Manifesto”
Ever feel your work (and your life) is becoming more complicated by the day, or even by the hour? You’re not alone. The dizzying rate of technological change is enough to make even the most hardened techies feeling disoriented. Amidst all the break-neck innovations bombarding our daily feeds, the fundamentals however, seem to be holding…for now. Until the robots start doing our dishes, we mortals are still relevant. We’re still responsible for doing stuff, building stuff, creating stuff, fixing stuff, and improving stuff. We’re tasked with meeting our weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals, delivering for our organizations and serving our teams.
From Confusion to Cohesion: How Role Clarity Impacts Team Morale & Project Success
A successful project depends on many factors, of which role clarity is one of the most important. Say your team installs a project management software like Asana. It’ll improve task management but you’ll also experience uncertainty. Specifically, uncertainty about each member’s role. The result is conflict, confusion, and delays. How can you fix this? We believe the RACI model is a great tool to establish role clarity, and we’ll explain why.
The Essentialist Mindset: How to Stay Razor Focused on What Really Matters
Explore how adopting an essentialist mindset can help you and your team prioritize opportunities and focus on what matters most.
The Crisis of Distraction – A Pathway Out
Author and Georgetown computer science professor Cal Newport’s recent New Yorker article “The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done” got me thinking. How can individuals, teams and organizations find relief from the tyranny of bombardment that’s killing our productivity. As Newport’s article states, with the spread of email in the nineties, “with all friction …
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Better Outcomes Begin with Shared Understanding
When I came across this quote from developer John Cutler, I found it insightful both for its simplicity and the deeper questions it evokes. “Walk a mile in your customer’s shoes, then figure out how to remove that mile altogether.” So, what exactly does he mean by “remove the mile”? One interpretation might be the …
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Rule of Thumb: When Providing Creative Feedback – Be Specific
Recently we delivered a Powerpoint design to a client. The initial feedback was: “Can you make the pictures more beautiful”. The designer’s response… “Certainly, do you have something specific in mind”? For creators, nothing is more frustrating than ambiguous feedback that lacks clarity and specificity. In most cases, it’s not the client’s fault. They’re just …
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Overcoming Project Paralysis
In business and in life, we tend to overcomplicate what it takes to complete our next project. In reality, there’s only one requirement…to start. Few understand this principle better than Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. Dan’s 80% Approach is the simplest, clearest recipe we’ve seen for overcoming the two mental habits that stall far too …
