A high performing team tackles to-dos yet also maintains relationships among team members that optimize collaboration. Performance and relationships; in a team setting you can’t have one without the other. Your role as a team leader is to find the perfect balance between the two.

A team doesn’t just happen. An effective team is designed, built, and managed. Carefully designed teams have a sense of unity and identification… team spirit, if you will. The best time to ensure a project’s success is before you even get started. Especially if you are the leader. Consider these seven guidelines before [...]

So you have some people working on a project together. But are they a team?

1. Purpose

Team members share a sense of why the team exists and are proud to be working on accomplishing its mission and goals.

An American education is expensive. I went to out-of-state public schools, not even private schools, and it left me with six figures of debt. As soon as I graduated, I got many letters that outlined how much my monthly payment would be. I panicked when I saw those numbers. It was more [...]

There’s nothing more motivating than being rewarded and recognized for high performance when you have earned it. Similarly, it is very defeating and disengaging to watch someone who hasn’t worked as hard get more recognition than you. We all instantly know when such an injustice has been committed. But can we tell [...]

I have a terrible sweet tooth, so what I like to do is make my favorite foods healthy. I’m on a muffin kick right now, and I have been making these every weekend lately. This quick recipe makes for an excellent brunch on lazy Saturdays and Sundays.

Technology has made it so that I can email you much more easily than I can call you. We can communicate virtually just as well as we can connect face-to-face. With the recession cut-backs, many companies have taken advantage of that. Workers have been treated as disposable. Cost-containment is important. It’s the most [...]

External motivators were excellent for the 20th Century. Today, our habit of extrinsically motivating employees is no longer effective – instead of improving performance, the carrot and stick method creates a blockage to innovation. With increasing complexity in our workplace, it is no longer the case that you can increase the incentives to [...]