Circumstances tend to tell a story about the quality of a team. How a team responds to good times and bad times reflects the actual state of a team. This does not always match the professed or believed state of a team. Good teams can struggle with pride. Bad teams can allow insecurity to dominate their decision
While teams can take too much pride in their own original ideas and waste time innovating something that already exists, I have seen just as much waste in taking too much pride in “modern” attitudes toward ethics and values. Some of the ideals that allowed what we call “the greatest generation” actually live up to their name
Everything has a start. Something motivates us to look into making a change. Sometimes it’s an embarrassment that comes when we find out we aren’t measuring up to some socially acceptable expectation. Sometimes it’s an idea of what should be based on the discontent of what is. Sometimes something was started without the intention of creating a
The easy choice is not always the best path. Our present always seems to be defined by the current fork in the road and the choice we have to make. Even turning around to undo a past choice is a choice to take a particular path. I am responsible for every choice I have ever made. The
We should never forget who we were so we can remember how far we have come. Progress is a story that has an ever-growing first act. Our past grows as our present moves into yesterday. We should remember just enough of our past to provide the context of who we are in our second act (today) and
It’s tough to understand when to change and when to double down on a proven method. There is clearly a time for both. The problem occurs when our preference becomes our default. If we like potential change, we will find reasons to advocate for it. If we like the way things are, we will find reasons to
Teams that like their favorite way become predictable and rely too much on a narrow window of circumstance to succeed. The inflexible decision-maker can fall into the trap of believing so much in their “tried and true” way that if it doesn’t work in every circumstance, it wasn’t meant to be. As the favorite way becomes more
Thinking through how the team will respond to various possible scenarios allows a team to better prepare for unknowns and situations that are outside the team’s control. There is a nuanced difference between winging it and responding based on the imagination of the planners. A robust imagination can help game-plans better prepare for the unknown.
Defenders of the status quo never quite have the same goals in mind as the leader who wants to improve. Improvement and progress are not the “win” of the DSQ. They aim only for business as usual. Anything that changes that becomes a threat to both their comfort and probably their power and influence. The DSQ can
When I first started driving I spent a lot of mental energy performing all the tasks required to get from point A to point B. I was hyper-aware until all the braking, signals and changing gears became automatic. Everything we do requires a time of hyper-awareness. Another way we describe this stage is to call it a