Years ago I heard the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. And while that adage is technically true, we certainly want to be more successful than a broken clock when working with people. Like cogs in a clock, there are a lot of moving parts when working in groups. Think …
Author Archives: Jerrod Guddat
Giving the Benefit of the Doubt
I read a great blog post recently by Nir Eyal called The Secret to True Kindness. (Check it out.) However, in the article I think Nir may have left out an important principle as to why we give people the benefit of the doubt. As I looked at his diagram screenshotted below (which is great …
Analyzing and Fixing Performance Problems
We all struggle at one time or another. It may be that project you keep putting off because you can’t seem to identify next steps to move it forward. It may be that spreadsheet calculation you got wrong that was discovered by a board member. It may be last quarter’s budget that you went over …
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Quit Making College Students Major in Minor Things
Administrative overhead is not high on my list of environmental factors that contribute to the mission of any university. (Administrative overhead being the transactional encounters a student must have to facilitate their education, e.g.: apply for admission, register for school, pay for tuition, etc.) In fact, it is at the bottom of it. Administrative overhead …
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Protected: Curing Left-handedness
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
The Zero Overhead Principle In Higher Education and Other Service Sectors
Years ago our team interviewed an individual for a position on our office staff. This candidate had previous work experience in their international church’s facilities management group. After asking a particular interview question this individual was reminded of an experience she had with a facilities request that had come into her group to swap out …
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Agree to Disagree… Long Enough
There is no shortage of self help and business books surrounding the collaborative and counseling culture that should exist in organizations. But let me teach a quick principle from a religious leader quote from long ago… “The reason why men [and women] always failed to establish important measures was because in their organization they never could …
The Pain Principle
Each of us has situations we find ourselves in or opportunities presented to us wherein we need to make decisions. We also find ourselves in situations where we rely on others to make decisions on our behalf. And while many things contribute to effective decision making aptitude and decision making ability one principle for decision …
Are Your Remote Meeting Participants Texting More in the Private Chat than Talking in Your Video Meeting?
So, many professionals are now working remotely. (Hats off to all those professionals who still have to work face to face during this COVID-19 pandemic.) Between Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meetings, etc. we are all growing accustomed to working with others through video conferencing technologies. Although, even a few months into this, we still experience …
If You Want to Lose Credibility, Here’s What You Should Do.
If I wanted to lose credibility quickly I would sit in a meeting, not write down an assignment given to me, and not complete the assignment after the meeting. Even worse, I would write down the assignment (tacitly acknowledging I will do something about it) and then not complete the assignment after the meeting anyway. …
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For the Love… Stop Sending Email Attachments
We all get them, you know, the email attachment. “Oh, wait, that is an older version of the template. Let me email you the latest version.” Agg.ra.vat.ing. People! Have you heard of Google Drive or One Drive? This isn’t even a generational problem. It’s an indiscriminate pandemic. My experience has been that from my teenage …
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It is Better to be Trusted Than to be Loved
So, a while back, during a particularly challenging conversation with my teenage kid, I heard myself say “There isn’t anything you could think, say, or do that would change how I feel about you. I love you. But whether or not I can trust you is up to you.” After that interaction I questioned whether …
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A Good Leader Loses His or Her Job
Yep. That’s right. A good leader looks for ways to make his or her job obsolete. I recently called our company financial customer service line since I received an automated email telling me I had an expense I had not yet reconciled in our employer financial system and the due date was coming past due. …
Dot Drawers and Dot Connectors
It was in elementary school where learning my numbers was reinforced by connect-the-dot pictures on a page. I remember connecting the dots of a turkey around Thanksgiving and presents under a tree before Christmas break. But what does connecting-the-dots have to do with personal productivity or performance improvement? This isn’t just a quaint post that …
We Need More Babble in the Boardroom Than in the Break Room
My attempt at alliteration in the title was intentional. While “babble” may be defined as incoherent, I am using the term more loosely here to describe candor, conflict, and collaboration that all good teams and organizations have as a fundamental part of their culture. I recently read chapter four of Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc. …
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