Kaizen is a Japanese word coming back to the meaning of improvement. As a management philosophy, it refers to a set of practices aimed at continuously improving processes, products, and services by making small, incremental changes. Essentially, it's what are the small steps we can take over time instead of large, big sweeping changes all at once.
Read MoreSara shares a brand new Business Bites on Decision Matrix Analysis: a systematic approach to making complex business decisions. It involves scoring options against predefined criteria and creating a weighted total to determine the best choice.
Read MoreThis week on the podcast, Sara discusses Strength Based Assessments. This is an assessment tool that measures what a person is already doing well. Keeping in mind their unique strengths and capacities. The idea is to use these benefits of what people already do well to be able to enable them to do more. Not only as individuals but as a part of teams.
Read MoreThis week Sara gives us a Business Bite on Gantt Charts and Project Timelines. Project timelines help us think about dates that are critical. A Gantt chart is typically a horizontal representation of a project with line items and overlapping bars, showing how long each task is going to take. It’s important to know how much work and dependencies need to be done in which order. By using a Gantt chart, effort and duration can be reflected.
Read MoreThis week, Sara shares a business bite with us on Emotional Intelligence Assessments. A unique component that demonstrates how well an individual regulates emotions effectively. She shares the depths of Self Assessments, 180 Assessments and the 360 Degree Assessments. These can effectively develop tools to improve competency overtime.
Read MoreThis week Sara gives a Business Bite on the DECIDE Model. Originally coined in the healthcare space, this business model is an acronym for activities needed in the decision making process. The DECIDE Model is simple yet designed to help us think about solution creation and executing the solution in mind.
Read MoreThis week Sara shares a decision making tool called, Fist to Five. This technique is a way to get consensus or quickly gain feedback from others in a meeting or a group setting. Using hands and fingers to show a level of agreement or disagreement to a statement. This is easy to implement, while giving the opportunity for clarity on what needs to be resolved.
Read MoreThis week Sara shares a Business Bite with us on Interpreting Organizational Language. When thinking about learning a new language, there is a structure behind it. The same is true when going into a new organization. When trying to understand the concepts and rules, the context and word choice matters. It’s important to seek out understanding to make sure all parties are on the same page and using the same words.
Read MoreThis week Sara gives a Business Bite on Cost of Difficult Behavior or conflict in the workplace. On the surface level, of course there are short term effects of not dealing with challenging behavior. It can be consequential for an organization to ignore this. It’s important to consider the implications that could manifest in the short, medium and long term, as a result of leaving conflict ignored.
Read MoreThis week Sara provides another Business Bite on Influencing Others. She shares three different ways to influence or make appeals: logical appeals, emotional appeals, and co-operative appeals. Each speaks to a different part of us such as our head, heart and hands. Consider each of these perspectives when engaging with the other party to make an appeal that is most effective for them.
Read MoreThis week Sara provides a Business Bite with us on Intent vs. Impact when it comes to leaders. It’s important to think about the intentionality around leaders, but it is also essential to consider the impact of the decisions being made. The difference comes down to feedback, and getting information from others to gauge how one is actually doing.
Read MoreThis week Sara shares a Business Bite with us about De Escalation. She describes a 5 stage process for understanding where someone lies along the lines of escalating behavior. Confusion, Frustration, Blame, Anger and Hostility. Usually no one intends to escalate someone's behavior. It’s important at the moment to look at each stage and the appropriate steps to take, to best support that person going forward.
Read MoreThis week Sara delivers a bite about Project Management constraints. Scope, Cost and Schedule. The idea is that all three triple constraints can not co-exist when trying to have a successful project. It’s important to make choices about what elements are most important. Sara introduces additional options to consider like risks, resources and quality.
Read MoreThis week Sara talks about Rational Detachment, a clinical term, but one she uses often when talking about de-escalating situations or trying to stay calm. Using this skill helps to separate our emotions from an event. She talks about the ability to use this in a leadership context.
Read MoreThis week Sara shares a Business Bite with us about Root Cause Analysis and The Five Whys. How can the five whys help someone identify the TRUE root cause to an event? This technique helps understand how to interpret or determine the real cause and effect of a particular problem.
Read MoreThis week on the podcast, Sara talks about high performing teams and the dimensions of team effectiveness. She shares one model for measuring team effectiveness across 8 domain. They developed statements and questions that spoke to the core of what makes an effective team. Sara introduces some of the influential elements.
Read MoreThis week Sara takes a dive into The Thomas Kilmann Conflict Management Styles. People have different preferences around dealing with conflict. Rather assertiveness or cooperativeness each style that stems from that is neither good or bad. Sara talks about competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating.
Read MoreThe Kozlowski Leadership Sequence has four distinct components. Leaders move through different parts of a sequence in their approach to the teams they work with. The four phases are acting as a mentor, an instructor, a coach and a facilitator. Sara breaks down the objectives and goals of each part of the sequence.
Read MoreThis week on Business Bites, Sara shares on Tuckman's Model for Team Development which explains 5 different phases all teams move through. This process is designed to help teams perform better, while moving through each phase. Forming, storming, norming and performing helps better understand team dynamics.
Read MoreThis week Sara talks about Mentorship vs Sponsorship. Two ideas with similar end goals that often get used interchangeably. A mentoring relationship provides support and advice to help an individual grow over time. While a sponsorship relationship functions by someone in a position of power actively providing growth.
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