Why do people fail to do what they are supposed to do? We’re quick to pin the blame on individuals, when it may be a system problem or a management problem. So to list just a few of the reasons some one might not be doing his/her job (or some aspect of it): They...
In reponse to yesterday’s post, Ken Flowers commented: …I’ve wondered if there are times when the retrospective should call out blame. That is, on some projects the real problem is that someone didn’t do their job. I believe that this kind of...
Recently someone asked how to avoid the blame game in retrospectives.Here are three things you can do.1) Establish working agreements (sometimes called “ground rules”) at the beginning of the retrospective. These are contracts the group members make with...
“Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers–a prize for the best halloween costume,...
A while back I was on a roll about Jerks at Work.I still hear people justifying jerk behavior because “he’s a star” or “she’s a creative type” or ….Bottom line is that jerks cost your company.Bob Sutton was interviewed on NPR...
In response to my post Sorry Jack, Jason Yip mentioned the book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. I bought myself a copy and have been enjoying a good read. Pfeffer and Sutton don’t directly address...
Pete Deemer shared a retrospective story on the Scrum Development list today:”I was doing a retrospective with a team that’s about 2 months / 3 sprints into scrum. Coming into the retrospective the team seemed to be feeling pretty low – they had yet to hit...
I picked up my new glasses last week–my first pair of progressives. The opticians warned me that it would take time to adjust to the lenses, cautioned me to be patient, extracted a promise to stick with the lenses for at least two weeks.They prepared me for the...
Diana quotes about a story (via Brian Robertson’s blog) about “getting people to change.” “A colleague of mine spoke at a big leadership conference many years back. It was one of these big things where they had ex-presidents, Jack Welch and other big names...
Marco Abis had a great post on retrospectives back in May. In case you haven’t seen it, I’ll quote part of the post here:First of all why do I value retrospectives? Many different reasons but mainly because they let’s you:learn from experience bridge...
A reader asked what he could do to inject some life into his sprint retrospectives. He’d been using two questions “What did we do well?” and “What could we do better?” for several sprint retrospectives with the general goal of improving performance. Nothing really...
Diana Larsen pointed me to a recent issue of Fortune: There are lots of interesting observations in the article about what have been unchallenged assumptions about business. I’m particularly interested in the comments on the sort of forced ranking that Jack...
One of the participants in my session (the session Diana and I did together) on Agile Retrospectives at Agile2006 asked how a retrospective differs from a sprint review where the team demonstrates working software.Demonstrating working software to the customer (in...
Johanna has a post about feedback on her blog…based on a feedback practice from our recent Managing One-on-One workshop.In her post, a feedback giver hints and talks all around the situation, rather than respectfully but directly describing the situation and the...
Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine who was disenchanted with work…which is a new development for her. Up until now, she’s been very positive about her work environment. “What happened?” I asked. Turns out that the manager of her group looked at her team and...
Too often, people, including managers, mistake labels or blame for feedback. However, labeling people doesn’t help. Labels don’t improve results, or strengthen relationships. Statements such as, “You’re lazy,” or “You’re too nice,”...
When I teach about feedback, I make a distinction between change-focused feedback, reinforcing feedback, appreciation/gratitude, and encouragement. Feedback is information that we hope will influence future behavior. Change-focused feedback is information about a...
On his consulting blog, Jerry Weinberg says: “Anger, for a consultant, is a costly luxury, and I am by nature somewhat of a cheapskate. By eliminating there-then-them anger, I cut my angry outbursts in half. By noticing my pattern of anger escalation, I dampen...
I found this snippet by Dick Dauphinais of the Herman Group via the Dear Workforce email newsletter: Compensation experts for years have preached that discussions on performance with employees should not be linked to pay discussions, although most companies ignore...
I recently talked to a person who billed himself as a coach. Here’s how he expained what he does: “I explain the obvious to the stupid.” Oh, my. It isn’t very helpful to dismiss the people as stupid. They may not know as much, or have as much...
