Category Archives: Leadership

#83 Organization friction

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Why do we have organization friction? The presence of organization friction means you cannot have “frictionless” leadership.

There is a lot of hand wringing and angst when conflict occurs within and between teams. While there could be many reasons for this conflict, a quick diagnostic is to ask, “Are the parties moving at different speeds?”

Whether you are moving more slowly or moving faster, frustration can be avoided by working to match the pace. of both parties. There could be many reasons: differing priorities, different values, different resource availability, different constraints, and communication gaps.

The only reality is that you must accept that friction exists, and then work to grease the skids, patiently, with discipline, and with skill.

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#81 Jonah’s Complex

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Getting to a person’s motives is very powerful. If you know what drives a person, you can target messages, and thus increase your chances of influencing them.

You have a choice of using the framework provided by Abraham Maslow on Metamotivation, or you can use Daniel Pink’s framework. I find the Jonah Complex a good starting point to do my analysis.

The point is to ask interesting questions that will reveal hidden motives, which can then be used to influence. The mission of the Strategy Execution Institute® is to develop competencies. Inspired by this idea, I composed the following haiku-like poem for one of my favorite bosses:

“And thus…
after reading Maslow’s teaching,
and being diagnosed with Jonah’s complex,
the turkey scampered up tree,
for he had in his mind,
become a squirrel.”

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