Global Reactions to Our Approach
For years, our clients have asked, “What do people outside the United States think about the Mutual Learning approach? Can it work in Europe and Asia, especially given the emphasis on saving face?...
View ArticleGiving Feedback Without Making People Defensive
Consultants have written volumes about how to give feedback effectively. Of course, they’re usually talking about situations that include some negative feedback. Most of them recommend that you give...
View ArticleHow We Make the Management Flavor of the Month
Do you remember total quality management? Continuous quality improvement? Quality Circles? How about MBO (management by objectives)? Has six sigma come and gone yet in your organization? I can probably...
View ArticleHow Curiosity Fosters Sustainable Change
Kurt Lewin, the late social psychologist said that if you want to understand how a system really works, try to change it. His point was that you don’t really know how groups or organizations work until...
View ArticleHow Leaders Undermine Change
Executives are very busy and learning to become a Mutual Learning leader is not a simple task. In a conversation with a CEO, he said to me, “I read your article and your book. Most of it makes good...
View ArticleHow Unilateral Control Can Kill You
This is not a headline from the sensationalist tabloid National Enquirer. It is the conclusion of Dr. Peter Pronovost, an MD and a Ph.D. in hospital safety, who is medical director of the Quality and...
View ArticleLeading from Every Chair
Most leaders still cling to the one-leader-in-a-room approach because we have difficulty imagining a better alternative. We think leadership is based on control, and that prevents us from realizing the...
View ArticleBumper Stickers for Leaders
I like bumper stickers. They’re brief, to the point, and often clever. Here are a few of my favorites along with how they relate to Mutual Learning leadership. Minds are like parachutes; they function...
View ArticleWhat the Mutual Learning Approach is Not
When leaders first hear about the Mutual Learning approach, they often misunderstand what it is. Sometimes the easiest way to understand something is to contrast it with what it is not. So, here are...
View ArticleGiving Up the “One Leader in a Room” Mindset
Do you head up a leadership team in which you feel like you’re doing most of the heavy lifting? If so, you may be suffering from the “one leader in a room” mindset. As the name implies, when you...
View ArticleWhat Stops Leaders from Showing Compassion
Here’s my latest post, which was published on the Harvard Business Review website. Most good people want to act compassionately at work. And recent research suggests that compassion also creates...
View ArticleTaking Over from an Incompetent Team Leader
Here is my latest post, published on the Harvard Business Review website. Becoming the leader of an existing team can be challenging, but taking over from an incompetent leader is more difficult....
View ArticleHow to Break Through Deadlock on Your Team
Here is my latest post, published on the Harvard Business Review website. If your team deals with important issues and team members have strong views on those issues, you can end up in a deadlock. When...
View ArticleWhat the Research Tells Us About Team Creativity and Innovation
There are areas in the research on teams where the findings are all very clear, as are the prescriptions for leaders. Creativity and innovation are not among them. We know how some factors affect...
View Article5 Ways Meetings Get Off Track, and How to Prevent Each One
We’ve all been in frustrating meetings where one person keeps going off on tangents. If the team can’t get the person back on track, important decisions get delayed and/or the meeting drags on past the...
View Article8 Ground Rules for Great Meetings
If you want your team to be effective, you need meeting ground rules — and you need agreement about how to use them. Many teams that have ground rules don’t regularly use them. But having rules in...
View ArticleGetting Teams with Different Subcultures to Collaborate
The term “organizational culture” can obscure an important truth: An organization often contains many cultures. This is true even if your organization is located entirely in one country, or even at one...
View ArticleHow Leaders Can Help Others Influence Them
Recently, I was talking with a senior leader from a world-class global learning and development company. We were discussing his firm’s approach to teaching leadership. He was talking about how to help...
View ArticleIs Your Team Coordinating Too Much, or Not Enough?
Effective teams don’t just happen — you design them. And two of the most important elements of that design are a.) the degree to which team members are interdependent — where they need to rely on each...
View ArticleHow Offering Confidentiality to Group Members Undermines the Group and Your...
This article is adapted from the new third edition of The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Coaches, and Trainers. (Jossey-Bass, 2017) When you’re a...
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