Whether you like it or not, the Christmas season really starts the second Halloween is over. I walked into Target a few minutes after it opened on November 1st (like at 8:01 a.m. because we were out of dog food and the dog was hungry) and it had been transformed into a Christmas shopping wonderland. Where has Thanksgiving gone? With Christmas marketing screaming at all of us to buy a lot of stuff, most of which we don’t need, I’m beginning to think about how to make Christmas meaningful for my almost six and two and a half year old without
I was a hardcore rule follower as a child. I didn’t question rules in any form or the adults or organizational or societal factors that put them in place. I was on time, didn’t question when or how things were done in school, on the sports field, in my home, and in my community. I did all the things I was “supposed” to do. In fact, I don’t think I thought much about the why and reason behind much of anything, I just did as I was told. For example, if a school supply list told me I needed 48
My husband has a great analogy for ineffective communication that goes like this: It’s like when they say, “Bring me a rock”. You go outside, grab the first rock you see, and take it to them. They say “No, we need a different rock.” You go back outside, grab a different rock, take it back, and they say “No, not that rock. It needs to be gray.” And so on and so forth until you eventually figure out that they wanted a big, round, gray rock from the bottom of the Mississippi River. How were you supposed to know that?
I recently asked a room full of managers representing dozens of organizations if they actually liked their own company’s performance management system. What do you think they said? Some of us may think of Performance Management as a rubber stamp on an annual review. We often don’t think of it as a living, breathing, system. Others of us may think of Performance Management as monitoring what we’re doing wrong. We may not think of it as monitoring and developing what we’re doing right. When an organization thoughtfully designs, implements, and continuously improves a performance management system, it should look like
Oftentimes getting from one place to another requires a bridge to cross. A connection point between two things that seem unconnected or so far apart they can’t be reached by conventional means is necessary. These “bridges” are often grounded in both sides of what they are trying to connect. They are meaningless and useless if they don’t have two sides for anchoring. So is true of meeting survival needs and getting to “thrive” needs in the workplace. Relational needs are the bridge. Relational needs have roots and support in both survive and thrive and they provide a way between the two. Meeting relational needs is the