Over the past forty years, I have participated in, conducted, or sponsored hundreds of team-building exercises. Most were successful and accomplished their purpose. Some were flops. But one has been requested over and over again. It consistently boosted morale and productivity. The activity? Group painting lessons. As the Administrative Services Manager for a large department in local government, I regularly…
When conducting a Baldrige Based evaluation, Key Factors are as critical to the evaluation as the criteria. I’ll freely admit that it took me several years as an examiner before I began to truly appreciate that – so they are worth a bit of discussion now. Key Factors are broken out into two sections. P1 – who the applicant is and what they do,…
In October 2020, I had the privilege of hearing Tim Wise, a prolific author and expert in the field of race relations, speak at the City of Tallahassee’s annual race relations summit. One of the first things he said seem profound to me and applicable under many circumstances. He said: “The words you use inform the strategies you choose.” Mr….
It’s been my experience that applicants tend to overcomplicate their responses in applying for a Baldrige-based award. This can be discouraging and is harder to communicate to staff, customers, boards, etc. P – Org Profile. To me, this is the most important thing to get right. Ideally – it should have SIMPLE and STRAIGHTFORWARD answers. If you are doing one for…
Introduction A couple of my coworkers are first-year examiners with the Florida Sterling Council, and as of this writing, they are just starting independent evaluation for their respective teams. Drafting that first comment is always hard, and they have asked me how I write comments. This is how I do it – if your team leader recommends a different approach –…
The Ecological Vision, Reflections on the American Condition is a book by Peter Drucker containing 32 essays, including one on “Information, Communications, and Understanding.” Now that essay, indeed the entire book, is well worth reading. But Mark Horstman of Manager Tools summed the essay up into one sentence: “Communication is what the listener does.“ As leaders, many of us are used to measuring…
