I could have titled this post “Undiscussables, or why we don’t talk about the elephant in the room”, but it was too long. There are certain things that teams don’t discuss. Sometimes this is to avoid short-term conflict, sometimes because the topic itself is embarrassing, and sometimes because it would require decisions that no one …
This year I started teaching a new course at the university. It was aimed to the third-year students with the intention to teach them basic abilities to work in group and develop good communication skills. We briefed them to develop a complex project in groups, formerly defined, and gave them almost five months to complete …
How do you make decisions in this team? A few days ago, I asked this question to a team of students working on a not-so-simple project for one of my classes. By majority vote – they said. We talk about the problem and then we vote. And what happens if you are not all there …
Conflict is inherent to human relationships. And yet, there are people who can’t deal with it. Our approach to conflict depends on, among other things, our willingness to take care of what we need while we care of what the other needs. Thus, setting boundaries is essential, but not always easy. Conflict is always an …
The definition of accountability is “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or account for one’s actions”. But that’s not all. Because we’re social animals, we tend to feel obligated to others: we’re accountable to others because it’s harder to make excuses when we’re in a relationship. A story In one of my courses at …
Everyone can win by chance. Indeed, everyone can win by chance many times. With chance, I mean that there is no correlation between the effort and the results. By winning, I mean achieving their goals. Many times, there are factors impacting the results that are out of the hands of people: timing, context, others’ skills, …
If you are a leader, and you feel lonely, you’re not alone. The loneliness of the leader is a well-known phenomenon less discussed than others because we all have the feeling that a leader is someone strong, able to face many circumstances with the appropriate calm. The truth is that the weight of responsibility can …
Have you ever been part of an extraordinary team? One of those high performing teams, not only in good times but, more important, in complex times. Leading in crisis is a challenge. Managing the pressure once it’s there is very difficult. On the contrary, building the team in times of peace to be ready for …
Tomorrow, it will be a year since I started this blog. Maybe because of this, I feel like talking about commitment and how it shapes our relationships. Meeting you here every week is not easy. It requires time and effort. When things go smooth, and I have fewer things on my plate, I can plan, …
The post this week is written from the Qatari desert. A great place to enjoy silence and think about how different the world can be depending on from where we look at it. Different and diverse as we human beings are, and thus perfect to face every challenge together. The earth needs the ice from …
