People who work to uncover the root causes of an incident or non-quantity outcomes of processes, often feel handicapped by the widely used phrase “blame the process, not the people”. This article will take a deeper dive into the meaning behind the phrase. The phrase has two nouns “process” and “people”. On the surface the […]
Author: dnixon
Managing Formal Performance Feedback difficulty
Formal end of year performance feedback is linked to progress in compensation and position. This makes this formal performance feedback more difficult for managers who often struggle with what to say. In companies with a large employee base, it is necessary to give direction to managers on how to measure an individual’s performance in a […]
The Thinking Manager/Leader
A common success factor uniting managers and leaders from supervisor to CEO, is the practice of attentive thinking. For each level in the organization what the most important things they think about from a work perspective varies: Supervisor: Thinking about getting work done and achieving results 1 day to 3 months out. Ist line Manager: […]
Four Common Biases to be Wary of
If I see food on the menu that I do not like eating my decision will be not to order it. A bias is more complicated but it’s also tendency to prefer something over another. We all have biases. As we go about our busy days our brain is constantly filtering the billions of inputs […]
Getting the Feedback You Want
Gen Z and millennials, it is reported regularly crave feedback. Whether it is true of Gen X or a wider demographic, getting feedback is reassuring or scary – depending on its nature. I have often said that “I really appreciate getting feedback, but hate it!”. This, of course is the thing with feedback in the […]
The Power of Unreasonable Requests
A weekend is coming up. You will likely do the same things you always do on a weekend. Sleep in a little later? Fix a few things around the home? Spend time with the children? What would happen if you posed this question to yourself or your partner, spouse or family: “Let’s design the best […]
The Super Power of Processes
Processes can be blamed or praised for the outputs they produce. A process that is applied in exactly the same way, time after time, will consistently produce the same output. This is a stable process. A stable process can produce an undesirable. We call an output that is not desired non-quality. As the process is […]
North Star, leading and lagging measures and results
Long before satellites and GPS, sailors navigating their ships used the Northstar as a basic point of reference. The Northstar is unique in that it is very close to the north Pole. This closeness causes the Northstar to appear stationary in the night sky as the Earth rotates. The actual star is called Polaris. Sailors, […]
A Brief Understanding of Personal Change
Without going into the physics and chemistry of how our brains work I draw on multiple research documents to provide a simplified view of how we operate. As a starting point our brains learn what we are interested in and also what we believe. the belief piece can be considered as a database in which […]
The Power of Speaking up
The most often occurring fear that my coachees have shared with me is the fear of speaking up. “My heart beats faster, my hands get sweaty and I decide that I will just remain quiet” said one coachee. This was similar to many others who had differing physiological experiences of the fear of speaking up. […]