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Conduct Entrance (Not Exit) Interviews
by Merrick Rosenberg, MBA The Saratoga Institute recently reported that 85% of people are dissatisfied enough to change jobs in the next year. Is it just me, or wouldn’t it be better to ask people what you need to do to keep them working for your organization, rather...
Conflict
by Peter B. Grazier Last August I taught a weekend course on team building to about 25 people participating in A Systems Approach to Quality Improvement at Madonna University in Detroit. Sponsored by the Association for Quality and Participation (513-381-1959), the...
Employee Involvement, What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago (Part II)
Employee Involvement… What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago (Part II) by Peter Grazier In Part I issue, I discussed how my work in the employee involvement field over the last 20 years has changed me. This work has significantly altered my thinking about organizations,...
There’s got to be a better way
“There’s got to be a better way!” It was the fifth (or was it the sixth?) time Mary had said this to her treasure hunt teammates. They’d been running from location to location, working hard and collecting points, but making slow progress. To Mary, it was clear that...
Start Talking and Get Back to Work
People need to stop typing and start talking!Years ago, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear a supervisor on the factory floor, barking, “Stop talking and get back to work.” After all, the formula for success was work equals productivity and talking equals wasting time. I...
I learned a bit about Team Building Last Night at Little League
My son has started to play his first year of coach-pitch baseball and we’re doing our best to teach him the rules of baseball Eye on the ball. Elbows up. Be ready to run. But we never thought we’d have to teach him to stop being so friendly. Kids nowadays have a...
Values and Beliefs as Barriers to Team Consensus
by Peter Grazier Originally published on teambuildersplus.com on November 23, 2003 Recently I have been engaged in an Internet discussion with some people about the difficulties in reaching a team consensus. It seems that most teams will struggle with this once in a...
How to Assemble a Child’s Swing Set
by DISC Style “Imagine you buy a swing set for your children, and the sales rep at the store tells you the estimated assembly time is 4 hours, detailed instructions included. What does this assembly, for each of the four DISC Styles, actually look like?” The D StyeThe...
Creating Team Agreement for Results
by Stewart Levine Because the WaWa, the Canada Goose, flies in formation,it is freedom tempered by responsibility. The leader must keep the group on course and look ahead for danger. The others must look around, to the sides, to each other. And they will reach their...