Category: Articles

How do you create a shared identity for a distributed team, without the benefit of physical proximity? Here are some things that I believe are most important: 1) Spend time in shared spaces Even if you sit in a physical office real work is slowly (or sometimes quickly) migrating to online places like Slack, Zoom, … Continue reading 🏴‍☠️ One of Us

Here's one way to get to the point faster and also to make group decisions that have a much higher chance of sticking. 1) Make your decisions in a concrete, concise and meaningful way A decision-making process is a form of communication, and we have a useful framework for making communication better — it's CCM: Be CONCISE: Start with the most important point. Skip the … Continue reading 🤝 A fast decision-making method for teams

Here's a powerful framework that can help you lead your team to greatness. Part One: The Setup 1) Get clear on what matters most to you, your team, your customers and the organization you are part of. If you're unsure: listen, ask and observe. 2) Make the results visible — there are many ways including regular customer interactions, all sorts of reports … Continue reading 🏆 How to become a great team

There's a slight wrinkle hidden in the previous one minute tip about clarifying outcomes and actions when you're stuck. I told you to start by clarifying the outcome by asking: What would you like to have happen?How will you know that it happened?Why is it important to you? and then to clarify the next concrete action you will take to make … Continue reading 🤪 How to stay sane on the road to meaningful outcomes

If you want to do something, but you're stuck it might be because you lack clarity about the exact outcome you'd like to make happen and the concrete action you need to take to get there. When? It might be when you're spinning your wheels on your own ... ... or when you're caught in an endless planning meeting. Either way clarifying can help. … Continue reading 🔍 When in Doubt Clarify the Outcome and Action

Kanban people remind us to visualize work. The default example is a board full of cards that represent tasks and their status. Something like this: That is a powerful tactic and we will surely explore it in future posts. But now I want to start with something a little different: Visualize the outcomes your work is … Continue reading Your Work Serves a Purpose: Make That Purpose Visible

After concrete and concise, now is the time to cover the third part of the trilogy: meaningful. Talk about what they care about … … using the same words they use to describe it. Great, but how do we know what people care about? Here are three ways: Listen, Ask and Observe. 1) Listen Many people love to talk, especially if they feel … Continue reading Make Your Communication Meaningful (For Your Intended Audience)

Use the pyramid principle Last week we covered the first C of good communication: Concrete Today it’s time for the second C: Concise 1) The best way to make your communication concise is to start with your main point. Add details, supporting arguments and the steps you took to come up with your main point only as much as … Continue reading Make Your Communication Concise

In the previous One Minute Tip we covered one of the three key skills of remote work, namely to communicate well in short chunks of writing. We ended that tip with the statement that good communication is CCM: concrete, concise and meaningful. Now we will make that tip more concrete. My favorite ways to make communication more concrete are: 1) Show, don’t tell (covered in … Continue reading Make Your Communication Concrete