Business Quotes Illustrated

Another one of the standard business quotes from past decades is this quote about risk and action and reward. Getting things done is a lot about how risk is perceived, how you manage courage and how alone you are in the race forward. Many factors, along with personal history, contribute to the likelihood of success...

Just back from ASTD and meeting with colleagues who use my team building games and other products, my thoughts on involvement and engagement being done by supervisors received lots of support. But the reality is that supervisors are roadblocked from being successful in motivating their people and often in making improvements to their workplaces.

I write a lot about teams and teamwork and am completing a blog post on my main blog about teamwork and implementation -- basically, it takes two to three years to effectively implement teams that generate solid results. And I wanted to illustrate that with a quip that I have been using for dozens of...

I think it is pretty simple, really. To involve and engage people in workplace improvement, one needs to involve and engage people in workplace improvement. That is pretty simple, right? And a bit obvious? Call that engagement. Assume that people have ideas for improvement. Why not ASK?

"If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten..." This is an old quote I remember from my NLP training 20 years ago and it really rings true. If we keep doing things the same way, why would we possibly expect things to change.

I thought to illustrate this most excellent quote by J. R. R. Tolkien from a poem from The Lord of The Rings: You can find some other business quotes elsewhere in this poems blog or on my main blog site you can access by clicking on the above image.

I thought that this was a good quote to support the theme of continuous continuous improvement that is embedded in the whole idea of Square Wheels One. The illustration below reflects our alternate version of the images. Don't Just DO Something, Stand There. Get perspective and learn from everything.

I thought to start a short series of Thoughts on Business that employ graphic images and some of my more favorite quotes. The idea is to frame some of the illustrations of Square Wheels and The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine into some easy-to-understand ideas for workplace improvement.

I thought to start a short series of Thoughts on Business that employ graphic images and some of my more favorite quotes. The idea is to frame some of the illustrations of Square Wheels and The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine into some easy-to-understand ideas for workplace improvement.

Here is a cute one about motivation that comes from continuous improvement: Sure can be fun out there! See our toolkit on Manager as Motivator, a Square Wheels-based training package For the FUN of It! Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.

By stepping back from the wagon, we can see things differently. If we can get the team to step back and look for issues and opportunities, they will see these. They can then make good choices about what they could change to make the journey better for the participants as well as improve productivity and...

For the past few weeks, I have been playing with my illustrations and pictures and the themes of managing and leading change and improvement. So much of it has to do with unrealized potential. You will know from my other writings that the issue of involvement and engagement is a critically important one for me...

Caterpillars can fly - a quote by Scott Simmerman One of my most favorite quotes about change, visions, potential and style: Managers can fly more better faster if they just look at their styles and see the opportunities for better involvement and engagement of their people. For the FUN of It!

Motivation and engagement are two critical factors for workplace improvement. So, I ask you, "What's wrong with this picture of how things really work in most organizations?" What choice have probably been made and what choices might be made to improve motivation and performance? Are we making things better and more motivating for people in...

I got to looking at some stuff on "empowerment" within the past hour. One was about an "empower camp" where they claim that by attending the camp, kids will leave with, well, empowerment for their lives. Okay, I guess... And I then looked at a program designed to improve engagement by empowering people, basically claiming...

Reflection is a primary way to identify new ideas and opportunities. Too often we continue to do things the same way expecting things to change. One of my favorite quotes is from the book, "Leadership is an Art," where Max DePree says, "We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are."...

One of the main focus of my work for the past 25 years has been on the general theme of people and performance, often around the concept of managing and leading change. This is about involvement and engagement and about building teams. A quote that I have often used came from my friend, Diane Mashia....

Some thoughts on allowing people to play with ideas, and those ideas will transform themselves into a different reality. But it is really hard to innovate when all you do is pull and push the wagon every hour of every day. Stop. Step back. Seek new ideas. Do things differently.

Thoughts on Constraints and Improvements in Processes and Flow We need to recognize where our processes are constrained and look for ways to make improvements in how things flow. This involves planning and collaboration and communications, key issues for leadership.

I use the words, "Continuous Continuous Improvement" because of the reality that many people will say that they have DONE continuous improvement, which is really a paradox and not possible. How can you have completed something that is continuous in nature? So the idea here is that we need to celebrate our successful completion of...

Here is my view of the main theme of Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman's most excellent book on how people think and make decisions. It is a great read. One key point is the we need to understand that good decisions require good perspective. We need to see more of the situation to have...

Looking busy and keeping active simply prevents you from looking around to see obvious performance improvement possibilities. The Round Wheels are already IN the wagon.