Imagine walking into work one day and your boss decides to divide you into teams of four with the following challenge – to build the largest structure you can using 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string and one marshmallow, which has to be placed at the top of the structure. It’s an unusual assignment, to be sure, but it’s also the basis of a sociological experiment on teamwork called “The Marshmallow Challenge”.

In his TED talk “Build a tower, build a team”, Tom Wujec shares his findings from performing this challenge with a variety of different groups – recent business school graduates, lawyers, engineers, CEOs, and even kindergarten students. As you’ll see, his observations about how the various groups approached the challenge gave rise to some surprising, and at times humorous, results:

While Wujec shares some interesting points on the nature of how we collaborate and the process of design, there are some additional lessons we can learn from this challenge on how leaders can guide their teams to a successful outcome: Click here to continue reading »”What The Marshmallow Challenge Can Teach Us About Fostering Team Success”

Image courtesy of Mary Jo Asmus.

Today’s piece is a guest post by Mary Jo Asmus.  Mary Jo is a former Fortune 500 executive-turned-president of an executive coaching firm, Aspire Collaborative Services.  Her company works with high potential leaders and senior executives in Fortune 100, government, and non-profit organizations around the world.  You can read more of her insights on leadership and personal development on her blog, Leadership Solutions at Aspire-CS.com.

A few years ago, I took a class to learn to make theatre masks at our local art institute. For some unknown reason, the idea of making a mask was compelling. To capture a “face” – in clay, plaster and neoprene held some fascination for me. Little did I know the impact and learning from this class would apply to the way I approached leadership.

We began the complicated process by using clay as a “negative” for a plaster mold into which neoprene would be poured to make the final product; a mask that could be used on stage by actors.

I love working with clay. It’s cool touch and ability to morph into anything I want has always held some fascination for me. I couldn’t wait to start, and scooped up the clay with gusto, making a mess and enjoying the process. At some point, perfectionism took hold of me; it took an inordinate number of class and non-class hours to create (what I thought) was the final clay mask.

I was happy with what I’d created – a flawless, realistic representation of a face. It looked exactly as I wanted it to. Surely, it was a work of art! Proud of my accomplishment, I showed it to the instructor. He praised my efforts. And then he told me to destroy it and start over.

He explained that although the mask was well-done, it was necessary for me to learn two things. The lessons I learned through this experience have surprising application to leadership: Click here to continue reading »”Don’t Get Too Attached”

Today’s piece is a guest post by Meredith Bell.  Meredith is the president and co-founder of Performance Support Systems, a software company based in Newport News, Virginia. She’s been an entrepreneur since 1982, when she discovered that she didn’t function well in a bureaucratic, political organization. For the several years she consulted to local businesses, helping managers develop the people skills they need to become effective leaders and build strong teams.  You can learn more about Meredith by visiting her blog, Your Voice of Encouragement.

Anyone who knows me well will be stunned to read the title of this post. How can I say there are negative aspects to ongoing self-development? I’ve always invested heavily in my own personal and professional growth – both financially and experientially. And my software company has been publishing assessment and development tools for the workplace for over 15 years.

But as one for whom learning is a passion, I’ve discovered there are some downsides. The four items listed here are related, but each presents its own challenge.

1. Accumulating a lot of knowledge without applying it in the real world
I admit that I rarely read novels. I prefer business books on topics like marketing, sales, leadership and personal development. That’s because I absolutely love my business, and I’m always interested in learning how to improve systems, relationships and of course, our bottom line. But sometimes I start on the next book before I’ve taken time to analyze and use the insights gleaned from the one I just read.

Lesson: For every book or program you go through, list the ideas that make sense for your situation. Then commit to implementing the one strategy that will make the biggest difference in your business or life, and hold yourself accountable for doing it. Click here to continue reading »”The Downsides of Being a Lifelong Learner”

Last week, Dorothy Dalton shared an intriguing guest piece on my blog which questioned whether management training should take into account the inherent differences between men and women. Not surprisingly, her piece resonated greatly among women readers, who both participated in the follow-up discussion, as well as sharing this piece with others on Twitter. Although on the surface this might seem to be a “women’s issue”, the reality is that gender issues should be viewed as an important topic for those involved in managing an organization’s workforce.

While Dorothy’s piece posed the question of whether such gender-specific measures are needed today, the points she put forth got me thinking about what we should expect in the decades to come based on some issues arising from today’s education system.

A dramatic shift in gender strengths in education

There have been numerous reports over the last couple of years that have shown that girls are excelling in the fields of mathematics and science, areas of knowledge which in the past were dominated by boys both in terms of grades and interest. At first glance, these results seem to indicate that girls are finally catching up with boys in their mastery of these subjects. A closer examination of the situation though, reveals something more problematic at play here.

In order to address the obvious difficulty girls were having with math and science, many education boards took on Click here to continue reading »”Are We Ready For The Workplace Gender Shift?”