tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103703392024-03-12T21:32:10.647-04:00No Kidding LeadershipThis on-line journal captures my (Dr. Linda E. Pickard) reflections on personal and organizational leadership based on my recent learnings, discussion with peers in my network, and from the rich pageant of daily news events.Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.comBlogger169125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-47653864657472582072020-07-13T17:36:00.000-04:002020-07-13T17:36:10.158-04:00If Our Biases are Elusive and Unconscious, How Do We Crack Open These Hidden Brain Codes?
Super
Forecasters Disrupt Bias and Re-Write the Code by Adding Some Friction
By Linda E. Pickard Ph.D.
July 13, 2020
“The fox knows many things but the
hedgehog knows one big thing.”
/attributed
to Archilochus, Greek Poet
‘Tip-of-your-nose’ perspective
We live our
lives as perpetual forecasters. “Tip-of-your-nose” reactions and decisions
predominate, as Philip E. Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-59527331751715186672020-05-12T17:45:00.000-04:002020-05-12T16:30:31.351-04:00Adelaide's Ghost - How the COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on my family's experience with a diphtheria epidemic 90 years ago
Today's commonly shared COVID-19 experience is a crucible for better understanding others, even family members
By Linda Pickard
Updated May 12, 2020
One Microcosm of an Epidemic’s Effects
Every April,
we were reminded by my mother that it was the month of “Adelaide’s birthday”.
Sometime in the early 1930's, my eight-year-old aunt Adelaide passed away from
diphtheria in a Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-34880302760982070762019-05-08T20:07:00.000-04:002020-04-17T17:46:19.374-04:00What Do the Muppets and Goldilocks Have in Common With Today's Diversity and Inclusion Dilemmas?
Muppet Bert cleans up Cookie Monster’s crumbs, relishes
routine, enjoys hobbies such as collecting paper clips, dresses neatly and
provides reality checks to Ernie, his roomie. Muppet Ernie likes to experiment
with fanciful ideas, creates mayhem, is a non-conformist and lives for new
experiences. Which one finds it easier to be inclusive?
As Michele Gelfand, distinguished professor of Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-49057611394941026312018-12-11T18:27:00.000-05:002018-12-11T18:27:15.855-05:00Do We Equally Value Warmth and Competence in Leaders?
Do We Equally Value
Warmth and Competence in Leaders?
December 11, 2018
This
question sparks great debates in my leadership classes. Many argue that
competence is critical to “getting the job done” so as a skill it must edge out
warmth. Others rebut that without warmth, do we really want to work with that
leader? After all, leaders can’t get much done alone. So, warmth plays
Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-25710514933484148892018-10-08T14:32:00.000-04:002018-10-08T14:32:07.534-04:00Can One Positive Person Turn a Dysfunctional Team Around?
The Team Battle
No matter what havoc Nik wreaked, one group he was part of
did not go down in flames. The other members kept their eye on the goal
eventually succeeding with flying colours on the task. But, when he tried the
same tactics in other groups, they struggled. What was the magical juice of the
first group?
Negativity is highly infectious. It travels fast below our
Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-55413316576430185642016-08-01T21:13:00.000-04:002016-08-01T21:13:42.752-04:00The Rage of Bias and the Hard Work to Tame It
What does it take to be a great leader?
I have been
fascinated with this question since my teen years. But, I had no clue about the
origins of greatness and how one becomes “great”. I knew intuitively though that some people
well-known and unsung rose above the fray to lend morale support and guidance during
good times and bad times. How come?
During the start of my career as a Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-767388431685090402015-12-29T20:42:00.000-05:002015-12-29T20:42:18.870-05:00What the Marshmallow Test Teaches Us About Following Through on New Year’s Resolutions
Self-control is the
master empathy ability – build it and your life improves
If you could imagine what you were like as a four-year-old,
would you have resisted the temptation to eat two marshmallows on the table in
front of you for about 15 minutes? In the 1960s at Stanford University’s Bing Nursery
School, some, not all, pre-schoolers were able to exercise enough
self-restraint to wait Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-62758081997317847512015-02-01T16:22:00.000-05:002015-02-01T16:22:20.108-05:00Billie Beane 'got it' - the behaviours that lead to desired outcomes. Any lessons here for the rest of us?
In the late 1990s, the Oakland Athletics baseball team startled the
baseball world. It was the poorest team
in baseball. Yet, the Oakland As won more regular season games than all but one
of the other twenty-nine teams, the Atlanta Braves. The baseball commissioner chalked
it up to “an aberration”. But, it was not. Two men with Bill as their first names
changed the course of baseball Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-49157775747630164352014-07-04T13:42:00.000-04:002014-07-04T13:45:37.459-04:00How Come We Humans are Biased?
Bias has a negative connotation as if we should not have any.
But what if there’s an upside? Has it helped to get us where we are? On the
other hand, what do you do if a bias (that you are don’t know you have) is
interfering with your relationships and your success at solving problems?
You and I are on this earth because our ancestors
strategically adapted to changing circumstances in their Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-73158131148573984372014-01-19T20:06:00.000-05:002014-01-19T20:06:07.875-05:00Are You More Like an Orchid or a Dandelion in Your Working Environment?
Why do some kids from really tough backgrounds manage to
rise above the fray and survive while others wilt? Do these kids show up in the
workplace as grown adults who manage the stresses well while others don’t?
Researchers Thomas Boyce (University of British Columbia)
and Bruce Ellis (University of Arizona) coined an orchid-dandelion hypothesis
based on the Swedish term “dandelion Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-18371967821170851272013-08-05T13:18:00.000-04:002013-08-05T13:21:32.929-04:00What do you think?When my sister gave me Tina Fey’s book “Bossypants” a couple of years ago for my birthday, all in jest of course, it reminded me of the forces that shape us and how difficult it is to change a habit. As the eldest, I took life far too seriously. To this day, my sisters frequently kid me about my relentless messaging to them. In my view, they always seemed to be fooling around, slacking off. “WorkDr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-49061952973264729512013-05-11T20:12:00.000-04:002013-05-11T20:20:05.195-04:00Beyond our natural default settingWhen I take a walk around any university campus, I calm down. There is something magical about the winding, irregular paths, the trees and vast green spaces, the beauty of the well-designed original fifty-year plus buildings and the hustle and bustle of students, faculty, staff and visitors traversing the grounds in every direction. It’s a cocoon, a little enclave in the midst of that Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-67332139684853376522013-02-09T12:12:00.001-05:002013-02-09T12:12:10.216-05:00Nature can help us with prioritiesHunger often tricks us. We heap our plate with delicious food expecting to savour every morsel. But, our real capacity to take in a certain amount of food in one sitting kicks in. For most of us, the left-overs go into the refrigerator or to the dog or the garbage.
The same can be said of lofty and exciting visions – “big, hairy, audacious goals” beget big priorities which can be tough to Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-5139420441560206742012-12-19T19:05:00.000-05:002012-12-19T19:05:12.412-05:00When greatness beckonsDid Barack Obama visit “the dark night of his soul” in the aftermath of the Newtown Connecticut mass killing of innocent children? That the time is now to do something?
Crises can bring out the best in a leader aided by circumstances opening the way. “Moments of greatness” as Robert E. Quinn from the University of Michigan asserts come infrequently to leaders. Most of the time, leaders Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-15539161820901219202012-10-28T18:27:00.000-04:002012-10-28T18:27:02.821-04:00Personal kanban for getting a grip on overwhelmI love post-it notes because they allow me maximum flexibility to move my “to-dos” around without the confines of linearity. I can stick them in my pocket. Paste them around my desk or on my door as constant reminders of what I have to do or should remember. They reduce my mind overload and give me the illusion that I am organized and progressing.
However, they too can become oppressive once theDr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-52586910994333973102012-09-23T18:04:00.000-04:002012-09-24T11:35:21.336-04:00What does squeezing a ball in your left hand have to do with “getting out of your head?”“Pressure” is not a welcome activity always. We can go one of two ways: choke or rise to the occasion. It’s a delicate balance which can be toppled even among seasoned veterans if we become discombobulated for some reason. That is, if our minds get the better of us.
So enters the term “getting out of our heads” as an antidote to crashing or freezing or whatever behaviour is manifested when we Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-48234885128517923462012-08-20T15:45:00.000-04:002012-08-20T15:45:34.125-04:00Take a read breakI’ve been an avid reader forever probably because my mother is. As a young child, I couldn’t help notice she perpetually had her nose in books. To this day she is the same. For comfort and a break from the stresses of life, books were and are her escape. Is there something in this for any of us whether leaders, managers or members of the vital teams that power all organizations?
Various research Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-69899130003976694772012-08-05T14:31:00.000-04:002012-08-05T14:34:02.093-04:00Want to motivate your team? Build high performance? Don't skip one important detail.Every time I read the latest statistics from Gallup and McKinsey or whomever on employee engagement my eyes glaze over. I used to write the information down for reference when doing talks or teaching. I don’t anymore because it’s the same old, same old. Lots of people in most organizations are not engaged. The further down the organization, the worse it gets. I always get an earful when working Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-1427772141522799052012-07-14T21:42:00.000-04:002012-07-14T21:47:14.353-04:00Subtle dynamics of teams make or break their greatness
As in a gentle Marine boot camp, I was madly climbing my way up to the top and over a “rope” mountain when the person behind me asked for help. My “boss”, who was much bigger than me, was having trouble. Naturally I reached out and provided a helping hand despite my angst toward him. Did this make any difference to our relationship in the long run? Not one iota.
We were attending one of those Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-91246151308822094552012-05-21T11:37:00.000-04:002012-05-21T11:37:35.232-04:00Keep calm and carry on: a drought of such messaging since 1939When I was doing my Ph.D. research on how people successfully change their lifestyles for the better, I was struck by one key factor: the power of external messaging to influence eventually their decisions to change. At one level the information about the dire effects of smoking, poor eating habits, lack of exercise, etc. was simply intellectual - received as reasonable but not taken at an Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-56378197410602010922012-04-13T12:48:00.000-04:002012-04-13T12:48:52.372-04:00Tread carefully with conflict. Creativity might not be the beneficiary.We are being encouraged to welcome conflict in group and teamwork to improve creativity. So says Jonah Lehrer in his new book Imagine along with a number of critics of the traditional brainstorming method. The classical method recommends generating and building on ideas first before judging. What the critics don’t tell us is how to debate or butt heads without doing harm.
Interpersonal Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-90200252979360789182012-03-08T15:34:00.000-05:002012-03-08T15:34:47.702-05:00Where brainstorming and introversion intersectIn the movie Dead Poets’ Society the teacher, played by Robin Williams, captivates and inspires his students with his confidence in their potential to make a difference:
You will learn to think for yourself…words and ideas can change the world.
This resonates with the emerging consensus on the limitation of group brainstorming – the danger of groupthink.
As the classroom scene unfolds, Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-21186284627809301022012-02-02T14:02:00.000-05:002012-02-02T14:02:36.995-05:00OK. I gotta think positive!You could see it in his eyes – the tears. At the same time his lips quivered. Kyle Stanley blew a three-shot lead on the 18th hole at Torrey Pines at the Farmers Insurance Open with a triple bogey. Meanwhile, Brandt Snedeker who was seven off the lead at the beginning of the day had finished with a 67 to assure him of second place – until the meltdown. Snedeker went on to win the golf Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-58422041780106592622012-01-09T18:41:00.000-05:002012-01-09T18:41:28.756-05:00Feeling "Sandwiched in Your Work? There are Tools to Ease the Pressure.It’s not getting any easier for managers to manage. The younger generations want agile, open, engaging tech-savvy workplaces where legacy bureaucracies reign. The front-line is seldom satisfied. An economic environment in perpetual turmoil yields no promises for stability. Politicians and bosses from above don’t always consult and make good policy or strategy. Managers are truly the “sandwich Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370339.post-14394235860394299162011-12-17T19:56:00.001-05:002012-01-01T19:53:46.127-05:00The Semicolons in Our Lives are Doing Battle with Our Twitter BrainsEvolution has hardwired us to read but there is no genetic map for it. The “expert reading brain” comes into being through parents, teachers and self-study. Its thickly branched and interconnected cells are the result of deep, focused attention and concentration on the pages of a non-networked book or article. According to Nicholas Carr (The Shallows) and a chorus of neuroscientists, hyperlinked Dr. Linda E. Pickardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14912492213716209559noreply@blogger.com0