Coach Dan's Blog

  🥳 Happy National Awkward Moments Day! - March 18 Celebrate the day by Seeing the humor in awkward moments and have fun with them. Being vulnerable –Share stories about our own awkward moments with your team. Laugh over them and enjoy the memory. Helping someone else recover from an awkward moment. They may be embarrassing at first. Everyone is human, and everyone has awkward moments! Keeping in mind that no one is perfect, ever.

I've often wondered if one of the reasons transformations fail to meet expectations, is because so many organizations misuse the word "transformation."   Let's start with a couple of simple definitions. trans·for·ma·tion /ˌtran(t)sfərˈmāSH(ə)n/ noun a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. trans·form /tran(t)sˈfôrm/ verb make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of. By these definitions, one would assume that any organization is going through a really fundamental change.  Something that will impact even the character of the organization.  That sounds like a BIG DEAL! If you were to look under the covers of what most organizations call "transformations," I suspect you'll find something somewhat different.  You see, when an organization claims to transform, the change is often limited to the addition of some new tools, or a migration to a different process or framework (way of working.)  Of c...

  "The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones" - Confucius Even Confucius was a fan of iteration!  

📖 “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche's thinking about how individuals interact when in a group closely aligns with the concept defined by Irving Janis in 1972 called "groupthink." ✏️ Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group. In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinions of the rest of the group. Individuals with differing opinions, or even opposed to the group's decisions frequently remain quiet in order to keep the peace rather than disrupt the crowd's uniformity. This phenomenon is common in the workplace, as the decision-making cycle continues to compress, and the pressure to deliver increases. It's a danger to leaders and managers because it reduces the likelihood of teams identifying and mitigating risk. Creativity and innovation is pushed to the side in favor of "goin...

  📖 "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." - Albert Einstein The siren call to action can be impossible to ignore. In fact, the pressure to "do" can be so great, that we'll look at data- make an assumption and then act without ever looking back. Albert Einstein seemed to be warning us not to confuse knowledge (data) with understanding... something worthy of exploring. I got curious and tried a CHATGPT prompt. (Data vs. information vs. insight vs. understanding.) I was presented with following response- 💻 Data –Raw, unprocessed facts or figures without context. 💻 Information –Data that has been organized, structured, or contextualized to make it meaningful. 💻 Insight –A meaningful interpretation or discovery derived from information, often leading to action. 💻 Understanding –A deep, holistic grasp of patterns, causes, and implications that allows for better decision-making. 💻 Each level builds upon the previous one, moving from raw data to action...

  Over the last 24 hours, I heard 3 questions that really caught my interest. The first question was "How can you coach someone to get better at something if they don't think they need to improve." The second question was "What do you do with that one person on the team who always seems to have an excuse as to why things aren't finished." The third question was posed today on LinkedIn by our very own Andrew (Drew) Boyer, "Is the demand for Leadership Coaching coming from Corporate Leaders or Employees??" What struck me is the answer to all three questions is quite the same... A coach can't help someone improve if they aren't open minded and ready to improve. If there is no invitation for coaching, no coaching will occur. If the person you are working with doesn't believe they need to improve - the likelihood of them investing in improvement on their own volition is small. You may show them data indicating there is room for improvemen...