How to be a better leader and eliminate workplace cliques.
5 ways to connect with someone when you don't know much about them.
How to make your people more cohesive.
I’ve been lucky. I've been part of a cohesive team. I have played in the same musical group for 27 years. The group is the Evergreen Club Gamelan.
Evergreen is not famous like U2, Coldplay or the Rolling Stones. I'm pretty sure you haven't heard of us. But we do have a bit of a following and a reputation for being great at what we do, including several CD’s, many concert tours and a couple of Hollywood film sound tracks.
While we’ve had many great things happen to us over the years, it hasn’t been the quickest path to financial freedom. Yet, many of the members have been in the band since it started more than 30 years ago.
Why is that? Why would people be part of something for so long when the financial incentives are low?
Because being part of a cohesive group is a powerful experience. It satisfies so much of what we look for in our work and, dare I say, even in our lives.
How a new perspective will make you more successful
I was blown away. He gave me one of the best audience comments I’d ever heard, and as he said it, I knew something had changed for him.
I had just finished delivering my talk, “Building Trust”, to a group of 100 people.
They brought me in because their organization was going through restructuring.
There were many changes in leadership.
People had had to learn new skills and others had even needed to change office locations. They needed to rely on each to make this work. They needed to trust each other.
If you follow my work, then you know the tools I use are musical instruments. I do this so people can experience the concepts that I speak about. The audience sits in a circle so they can see each other as they do this.
About 2/3’s of the way through my program, I had the group improvising a piece of music, as I often do.
At one point, when the piece was cookin’, (musical term for going really well), I brought a couple of people into the center of the circle. One of them was the boss.
At first they weren’t sure why I brought them up there. I told them, “Just stand here and listen.”
When the program was over and I was chatting with a few audience members, the boss approached me.
He said, “Hey Paul, I have a suggestion for you. Remember when you brought me up to the center to listen? I said, “Yes.” He said, “You should find a way to have everyone get to do that.”
I said, “Interesting. Why do you think that?”
He said, “When I was in the middle of the circle, I could hear how it was all fitting together. I was astounded at how great we sounded as a group.
When I was sitting in my section, I didn’t hear that. I only heard the few people around me and myself. It didn’t sound as good. I was wondering if what I was doing mattered.
When I was standing up there, I realized that this is something everyone can learn from. It would help them appreciate their contribution.”
It struck me that many of us suffer from that problem. We’re working away doing the best we can but we don’t know the impact we’re having. We don’t know if what we are doing is making a difference.
And it’s because we don’t have the right perspective.
Why you need to get out of your routine and be creative!
I grew up on a small farm with a Dad who was an engineer. He was scientific and mathematical but didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. He seemed to be able to build or fix anything.
My favourite building on the farm was his amazing workshop.
His workshop had two massive workbenches, big steel vices, tools-a-plenty, and odds and ends hanging from hooks everywhere.
When I was old enough to wield a hammer, my Dad would often give me some scrap pieces of wood and say, “Here, build something out of these things.”
Looking at the pile I’d say, “What do you want me to build?
He’d say, “I’m not going to tell you what to build! Be creative!”
He'd let me use whatever tools I wanted. (As long as they didn’t need power!)
Mostly, I’d come up with useless things like a small chair perfect for a cat, or a tiny car with square wheels. But there was always something at the end. Often they were taken apart for another project down the road.
I realized as an adult what an important lesson that was for me and what an important lesson that is for everyone.
Because being creative is one of the keys to happiness.
This is going to be worse than awful.
We’ve all been there….
You’re at a conference, AGM, company retreat, or town hall and it’s time for the team-building session.
You can almost feel the fear in the room.
You start to think, “Am I going to be embarrassed? Am I going to have to do something silly, something I’d rather not do in front of my peers?”
“Is there any value here? Don’t they know my emails are piling up?”
“How the heck will this help me with my work?”
“This is going to be a waste of time.”
Well, actually, it may very well be….unless…
3 things you can do to resolve workplace conflict
I’ve haven’t looked at myself in a mirror during conflict but I can feel the heat coming over me, my heart rate increasing, my thoughts racing.
It bothers me. I prefer the world where everyone gets along. You know - the one that doesn’t exist.
For many years, if there was any kind of conflict in my life, I would spend time trying to think of another way – any other way - except to deal with it head on.
I’m much better now. But it’s an effort.
The difference is that I know that it’s better to work through conflict if you want to move forward.
How To Have People Fall In Trust With You
I had just come back from the beach when the phone rang in my room.
I’m not even sure how he found me, hidden away at my favourite resort in Punta Cana with my wife. I guess I might have told him I was going. I couldn’t remember.
It was one my band mates back in Canada.
He told me that one of my musical mentors (John Wyre) was putting together a concert in Germany for Expo 2000. The concert was in a few days and one of the acts couldn’t make it last minute and there was an opening for our group. The fees weren’t quite worked out yet but it would all be taken care of.
He said, “ Can you do the gig?” I said, “Absolutely.”
A day later I flew from the Dominican Republic to Toronto, had a quick airport meal with my wife, and boarded an overnight flight to Frankfurt. I was picked up at the airport, whisked to Hannover, and showed up for the second last rehearsal before the show with my bags in tow.
Looking back now, it was pretty crazy. I dropped everything and flew over an ocean on a moment’s notice.
Why would I do such a thing?
Because of trust.
10 things you can do to be an amazing collaborator
Warning! I am going to start this post by talking about my kids and their friends.
I know that there is nothing more boring that having someone prattle on about their kids. So I'll be brief.
It’s because kids can teach us about collaboration, the collaboration we all once knew (even you, without the kids).
It struck me that kids (yours, mine and that other guy's) seem to be pretty good at making it happen.
I've been listening to them talk… it’s one idea after another. They can’t wait to get together.
I’ve watched them build something out of spare bits that they find lying around. Or they create some new video with their technology, which is never too far away.
They all seem to know what to do and when. Sometimes, it doesn’t even look like they're collaborating, it’s so seamless.
Sometimes it looks like an argument. There’s one voice trying to get on top of another to share the best idea.
Sometimes one leads, then another. There is a lot of trust - a lot of inclusion.
But no ever walks away upset. Somehow, it all works out. As a matter of fact, this can go on for hours, even days. It depends what it is, I guess. I wasn’t invited to the meeting.
It got me thinking about what it takes (in our grown-up world) to be a great collaborator. And here's what I’ve come up with.
How to use silence to make your work and your life better
I’m fortunate to be able to spend a little time at a cottage during the summer. One of my favourite things to do is to get up just before sunrise and take the canoe out for a slow paddle.
As the sun creeps upward, it’s a time of awe-inspiring silence.
The water is like glass. Only the bow of the canoe and my paddle cut through its smooth shiny surface.
It’s not really silent though. You can hear some birds singing and the odd fish jumping out of water, but it’s as close to silence as I can get without finding a anechoic chamber somewhere.
I know that, very soon, the silence will be overcome by fishing boat motors or the splashes of an early morning swimmer, or worse, by jet skis and skill saws.
I’ll often head over to an old beaver dam and just sit there in the canoe. I’ll let my ears search the forest and water for a chirp, rustle or splash. I hope for a chance encounter with a beaver perhaps. But my paddling has probably tipped them off long before I arrive so that’s never happened.
This is a place where I remind myself how to listen.
And that’s important. Because without an appreciation for silence, we can’t really listen to what others have to say.
