Situational Leadership – Dr. Paul Hersey

I once took an interview for a role that was well above my skills, experience and background level, during one of the rounds the interview gave me some constructive criticism and suggested I read this book. To this day it sits on my shelf, and think back to at the lessons I learned from it, and the experience it has now given me to manage teams and people more effectively.

If you have or don’t have a leadership role, looking to advance your career or simply understand a workforce better, I would highly encourage giving this a quick read.

OKR’s, Initiatives and Examples

Initiatives and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are both strategic management frameworks, but they differ in their focus and purpose within an organization.

Initiatives:

Initiatives are specific projects, programs, or actions that are undertaken to achieve a desired outcome. They are concrete and actionable steps that contribute to the fulfillment of broader objectives. Initiatives can be short-term or long-term and are often cross-functional, requiring collaboration and coordination among different teams or departments. Initiatives provide a structured approach to implementing strategies and achieving organizational goals.

OKRs:

OKRs, on the other hand, are a goal-setting framework that helps define and measure objectives and their key results. Objectives represent the desired outcomes or goals that an organization or team aims to achieve. Key Results are measurable milestones or metrics that indicate progress towards the objectives. OKRs are typically set on a quarterly basis and are designed to align and focus teams, providing clarity on what needs to be accomplished and how progress will be measured. read more

The puzzle of motivation

  • The puzzle of motivation – Daniel Pink
    • https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_the_puzzle_of_motivation
      • When – the scientific secret of timing
      • @DanielPink

      Here are a few key take aways from this short Ted Talk:

      Higher incentives led to worse performance

      Mechanical skills = the higher the skill the higher the pay
      Cognitive skill = opposite

      3 items:

      • Autonomy
        • Self direction works really well
          • Atlassian (Jira)
          • Hackathon
          Fedex days

        • 20 Percent Time
        • I think its something we have tried to encourage with “meeting free fridays”
        • ROWE (Results only work environment) – no schedules, just get the work done, meetings optional = productivity up, work satisfaction goes up
        • read more