Performance Management Company

07/08/2024

I've been blogging a LOT lately so if you want to see some of the new posts, like the one about "What would Tom Peters do?" or a similar one on Peter Drucker, go to the blog page on the performancemanagementcompany dot com website.

In working on developing a compendium of my debriefing slides (now at 330!) for The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, I got into a series of questions and comments around closing a session.

So, I added my most favorite closing story, The Moose Joke, to the set but also thought to share it here. It is a story about continuous continuous improvement and persistence and accomplishments that relate nicely to the team building and performance themes.

Here is a link to the "train-the-trainer" version with a narrative about how to actually tell the joke. (It works globally, for sure. It works great even if people do not know what a moose actually is, like in Hong Kong or Singapore.) Proven with audiences over 35 years, in reality.

Have FUN out There! 😃

The Moose Joke is the closing story that I use for workshops and team building sessions to anchor key learning points and to get people to consider possibili...

06/21/2024

LOTS of people (yeah, including me) have things to SAY about managing people and performance in the workplace. Yet, with all the talk and models of this and that over the years, nothing seems to really make a difference. We're not dealing with the bad managers and the bad leaders very effectively, for example.

And we allow the really bad actors like the senior management at Boeing to make things really bad and even worse.

Thoughts?

The Data: Employee engagement levels became slightly less negative between 2022 and 2023. While the percentage of global employees who are engaged was unchanged at 23%, the percentage who are actively disengaged fell by three percentage points to 15%, and those not engaged increased by three points to 62%.

Larger Implications: Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion, or 9% of global GDP.

😢

06/09/2024

Supervisors are critical to impacting motivation, innovation and quality, as well as involving and engaging people. Here are some thoughts:

Supervisors are critically important for engagement, motivation and innovation. Are we optimizing the impacts?

08/19/2023

We are redesigning The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, and planning for Version Two, with new graphics, a new game map, new cards, more debriefing illustrations and moving the TTT and support to an online delivery.

We will also start a Certification process to give users a formal badge of recognition and also bundling a set of graphics that owners can use to publicize the game for players or prospects.

One user suggested this for the redesign:

"Why not set up a game that we found the Mine and challenge the teams to compete to get there first and stake their claim. Everything then can be be tied to current weather conditions, resources, etc."

My response goes to the CORE difference of LDGM compared to everything else in the marketplace, and what I see as the game's main design:

"I do not want the game to be a race with winners and losers.

The game is about optimizing the gold mined, not who wins. The overall results are the key, not how much one of the teams acquires compared to the others.

Collaboration is the underlying message; generally teams CHOOSE to compete, but sometimes they do collaborate so we stress that in the debriefing and look for what they want to do differently.

Getting there first negates the strategic planning — they would not get the Cave Cards (to replace tents and thus to get more supplies and fuel) or to get the Turbos (which allow them to go two blocks per day and to share the extra two with other teams). Pushing this as a competition is NOT the design."

The game is about COLLABORATION and ENGAGEMENT! And "The goal is to mine as much gold as WE can."

Have FUN out There! 😁

05/18/2023

I just uploaded a pretty detailed overview of The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine into slideshare:

The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine Ideas for Team Building and Performance Improvement Dutchman Professional for unlimited teams © Performance Manage...

05/18/2023

I saw this and just had to share it. I looked but I do not find the original source. I will update if I can find the copyright owner. I think this is great!!

Framework: THIS is what sometimes happens when you add a toxic employee to your workgroup or team. My suggestion is that we can do some things differently to change the impacts.

03/07/2023

I posted up a new blog that wraps organizational culture and collaboration around my recent trip to The Galapagos. I would love your thoughts on whether this could be improved but I think I share solid ideas.

My trips to The Galapagos have generated interesting Learning Lessons for me about people and organizational culture. Much like organizations, these islands