Catalyst for Collaboration—Achieving Astonishing Results.
I was talking with John Phelps, the CEO of the Arizona Bar Association just the other day about what he does to build high performance teams. We started talking about what he does to reward those who go above and beyond in demonstrating the values of the staff at the AZ Bar: Excellence, Integrity, Loyalty, Respect, Service, Stewardship, Tradition.
John pulled out a small medallion – a …
Last week, I gave a presentation about enterprise-level thought leadership to a hundred executives at the Senior Executive Network. You may be thinking, “Kristin, you’re a high stakes meeting facilitator; what are you doing talking about thought leadership?”
As I was preparing for this talk, I was wondering the same thing myself as I do not consider myself to be an expert in thought …
I am experiencing deja vu and I don’t like it one bit.
A few years ago, the meetings industry came under attack when government leaders mistakenly characterized underperforming companies spending frivolously on lavish meetings. Referred to as “the AIG effect,” it really devastated the meetings industry as all companies (not just underperforming ones!) were reluctant to even be perceived as frivolous. Many members of our industry (including the National Speakers …
I love to use this team activity to creatively demonstrate the idea that we can’t rely on the team leader or expert to make all the decisions! Perfect for a group of 6 to 20 people. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes. You’ll need two different colored marking pens OR one aardvark and one antelope stuffed animal!
Have the team to sit in a circle or U-shape. Introduce …
Just this past week, one of my clients asked, “If we could do only ONE thing to take our teams from good to great, what would you recommend we do?”
After a nanosecond of thought, I answered, “Do periodic critiques – set aside a bit of time for the team to reflect on what’s working well on the team and what they can work on to get better.” In this …
Many years ago, I heard this surprising contrast between a group and a team:
A group of people get on an elevator. A team occurs when the elevator gets stuck!
Think about it. A group of people walk on to the elevator, they work on the same floor, they work for the same boss, they work on the same type of task…..you get the idea. A group has something in common with each …
On holidays, my family has a long-standing tradition of going to see a matinee at the movie theater. The challenge is in finding a movie that appeals to all – and that no one has seen before.
This Easter was no different than all the other holidays! We looked up our favorite movie theater (18 choices!) and narrowed it down to two. After reviewing the trailers, critic reviews and rotten …
For the last two days, I hung out with 400 incredibly cool Javascript programmers at the JSConf 2012 in my new hometown of Scottsdale, AZ. I spoke on the second day, so I wanted to get a feel for this conference and the attendees – especially since it sold out within 30 minutes of the registration opening up without an agenda or speaker …
You’ve decided to bring in a facilitator to help your team achieve the desired results – either an internal company facilitator or an external professional facilitator. There are four elements you should consider (and one caveat) when hiring a facilitator:
Skill level. Effective facilitators have extensive knowledge of group dynamics, process tools and techniques. They are able to guide the group to achieve the desired result (link)
Experience. Unfortunately, there isn’t a …
Bob, the CEO of a $400 million manufacturing company, decided to bring his leadership team together for a two-day off-site retreat. He determined who needed to attend, what topics they needed to cover, and handed it over to his executive assistant (EA) to arrange the details.
Sounds like a great plan, right? Wrong. Bob is headed for a marginally successful meeting. If he took a …
