Tag: relationship

Teaming Realities

Why are Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives failing? In previous blogs, we have addressed the challenges of turning organizational initiatives into culture.  Moreover, we discussed DEI and the shortcomings of those institutional efforts as well as broached the construct of Teams incorporating DEI. In this edition, we will expand on those subjects and develop

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Why Corporate Initiatives Fail

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, one definition of initiative is. “A new plan or action to improve something or solve a problem.”  In corporate parlance this often translates into yet another short-term and often politically correct effort to demonstrate forward motion/social citizenship.  Often forgotten faster than the evening news cycle as new searches for performance

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Who Let the Dogs Out?

Our often called, ‘Best Friend’ has and continues to teach us all manner of life lessons.  While the Dog Days of Summer will soon be upon those who live in the northern hemisphere, not all dogs choose to stay on the porch. Most dogs are action oriented.  Throw a ball or a stick and some

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ESG Explained

According to Investopedia, “Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments.”  Definitions of the three components are pretty straightforward: Environmental–Generally refers to the stewardship of the planet and how organizations facilitate that responsibility. Social–Facilitating organizational responsibility to the global

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The Thirteen and The One

As of this writing, the situation in Ukraine is fluid at best.  Many see the Ukrainian people as heroes winning against all odds.  Other pundits predict they will be overwhelmed in the near future.  History suggests the later is a premature prognosis. In the 1940’s European resistance played a major role in the defeat of

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Beware The Guns of March?

Readers know that as of this writing there is geopolitical and military tension in eastern Europe.  Hopefully, the situation will resolve peacefully. This piece is not about those politics.  Rather it is about the potential for accidental engagement and how that risk can be mitigated. President Kennedy is famously cited for the comment that referred

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Getting to Diverse and Inclusive Teams

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Team Models There is a tendency to see DEI through the lens of initiatives or often a process semi-outside the daily ‘organizational’ grind.  Does this represent reality? Organizations spend countless sums training employees and others they depend on for Operational Excellence performance.  They often trust global Teams to add stakeholder

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THE SCIENCE: The Reason We Need STEM

Almost every day, we hear that “The Science” says . . .  We are told Covid-19 and Climate Change are based on The Science and as such we must accept that expert analyses as ‘settled.’  Then something changes and once more the science police demand we accept their new interpretation. The near-term result: confusion and

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Questions, Questions, Questions

Picture sourced from LinkedIn, author unknown. It seems like there are a lot of answers these days, even to questions that have not been posed.  As of this writing, this author understands that masks work for Covid-19 but vaccines not so much although we are advised to get the shots and even a third one

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Crisis Management: The Need for Internal Consistency

Attributed to former US Senator and Governor Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, “Trust is built with consistency.”  Moreover, from statistics we know that Internal Consistency, “measures whether several items that propose to measure the same general construct produce similar scores.”  The follow on definition statistical reliability, “is the consistency of a set of measurements or measuring

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Are Your DEI Wheels Spinning?

Originally published as a LinkedIn article on July 6, 2021, this updated version is reprinted here with the permission of the author.  Links to relevant sources are added. Lately, many LinkedIn posts bemoan the state of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The seeming slow take up of great ideas. Some argue that DEI initiatives are no

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Its the Heart

“A good, quick, small team can beat a big, slow team any time.” — Paul William “Bear” Bryant, legendary college football coach In the early 1990s my former wife and I, both avid sailors decorated our boat for the local Christmas Boat Lane Parade.  While we had some help, most of the work was performed by the

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Point of View

What Are We Doing?   An interesting sign of the times.  Individuals on social media who identify themselves by name, photo, job (even senior) title, organization etc. are taking controversial positions on a variety of often emotional subjects.  In the old days discussions about , sex, politics and religion were off limits in the corporate

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Open Sesame

A Year of Leadership–Or Not! On March 2, 2021 the Governor of Texas announced its 100% reopening–effectively proclaiming an end of the Covid-19 crisis.  Needless to say in our hyper-partisan world, many widely decried the decision and even accused him or bringing physical death to the state population. Mississippi announced a similar rollback of virus

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Input Response: Cycle Time Reaction

Melvin—a story of growth.  At beginning of my oil and gas career, I was partnered with my mentor to be and at the time my supervisor; Melvin.  A gruff old cuss, he was a long-time south Louisiana ‘Cajun’ field engineer.  Little did I know at the time the next months would be life changing for

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MVP: A Case of Failure

Not as Easy as it Seems When transforming this website to the Word Press platform, this author accepted the “wisdom” of various online sources and used a so called up and coming new Page Builder.  A huge mistake! After many failures and indeed public page lockups, I changed to a more established solution—the one used

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remote working

Home Base During a Crisis: ‘get up, clean up, and dress up’

In the middle of a global pandemic, all of us who can are advised to work from home.  Many of us have worked remotely for a while now.  Whether traveling, dealing with sick children, avoiding traffic or dealing with a natural disaster remote management has become part of our business DNA. Yet, this pundit was

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2020 Vision: Are Your Stars Aligned This Year?

Depending on one’s perspective, 2020 is either the end of the last decade or the beginning of this one.  One can argue that our actual birthday is the day we were born and 12 months later we are one year old.  This suggests that on our tenth birthday we have lived a decade and a

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Lessons in Servant Leadership: What Did You Say?

Watch almost any media talk show and the interviewer will often interrupt the guest trying to answer the question just posed.  This is such a common phenomenon that it is accepted behavior perhaps driven by ratings that come from on-air confrontation.  It is part of the culture! Why ask the question if you’re only going

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Want – Like – Need

Years ago, as part of a never-ending series of company reorganizations, a team of our change management consultants headed to the ‘field’ to interview users.  Upon their return, they presented an extensive list of technology investments deemed necessary to remain competitive. Their list focused on technology and not business concerns.  Wondering, I asked who they

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Aging Success: Never Give Up!

We live in a youth culture.  As young Baby Boomers, we were going to change the world.  Later other Gens would say the same.  Is it now too late for those over 50 to attain entrepreneurial success? A serial (often failed) entrepreneur, (Kentucky) Colonel Harland Sanders sold his first franchised secret receipt for “Kentucky Fired

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Systemic Reasoning Errors: Stink’en Think’en

The April 13-14, 2019 edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Russiagate and the Media’s News Denial.  The author makes the point, “Judgement is teachable.  Long ago, in relation to the Enron debacle, I pointed to the work of Harvard’s Max Bazerman and Northwestern’s David Messick, who

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I Hate These Things: Why Does This Always Happen to Me?

We have long argued that people will change if they understand the new idea/technology value proposition—what’s in it for me?  For some, this question is more difficult to answer than others. Moreover, we are all stuck!  This age of digitalization may pass a few ‘off the grid’ hermits by, but for the rest of us

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Excellent Behaviors: Assessing Relationships in the Operational Excellence Ecosystem

One of the hot business buzzwords of 2017 is “Operational Excellence.” It has been the subject for many pundits, including this one. In October and November we published a two part series, Assuring Operational Excellence from Contractors and Their Subcontractors through BTOES Insights. Each part included a link to additional information. The October edition featured

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