Running an effective meeting

- turn a time suck into productive time

 - By TC North. Ph.D.

Are your meetings a dreaded time suck or an enjoyable, productive collaboration? When summarizing a meeting, have you ever heard, “What a waste of time!” “That was boring!” or “Please shoot me if I have to go to another meeting like that!” Those types of meetings are not only a waste of time, they’re also demotivating!

After the basics of how to run an effective meeting.

After you learn the basics of conducting an effective meeting try these nine unusual strategies to create killer meetings — highly productive meetings that people love: read on …

Simplify and expedite effective business solutions

– By TC North, Ph.D.

What’s your rate-limiting step? This isn’t a new bar pickup line to replace, “What’s your sign?” It’s a term I first learned in a graduate-level biochemistry course. Being in psychology, the hard science almost broke my brain, but I was totally fascinated with the concept that one step determined the ultimate speed of a highly complex biochemical process involving scores of other steps. And it seemed like it applied to most everything.

So what’s the high-performance business effectiveness (and life) lesson from biochemistry? … 

High performance organizational culture – seven known and one unknown characteristic

Imagine this: You’re in an environment where everyone is laser-focused, working with passion and excitement and being optimally productive (wouldn’t that be blissful!?). In world-class athletics, we refer to this as the flow state. At times, individual athletes experience it and teams attain it — and it creates optimal performance. In business and sports, you must be in a high-performance environment or culture to achieve … 

Leadership lessons Tim Tebow, John Fox and the Denver Broncos

Who’d a thunk it? After starting the season with one win and four losses, the Denver Broncos’ football team ended up making the playoffs and winning their first game in the playoffs. Head coach John Fox seems to be both a courageous and strategically mindful leader. Fox replaced Kyle Orton, a statistically accurate quarterback, with the unproven and inaccurate passing quarterback Tim Tebow—to the rapturous joy of some fans and the chagrin of others. Tebow brought energy and leadership that helped turn the season around.

There’s an old adage in sports: “Play your strengths and …

Replace negative thoughts – Don Schula got it right.

Replace the negative thought “I want to be liked” with “I want to be respected.” That would be the leadership advice from Don Shula, the Hall of Fame football coach of the Miami Dolphins — and the only professional football coach to coach a professional football team to an undefeated season.

Schula had a conversation with a reporter that went something like this:

Reporter: “I hear that you’re a ‘players’ coach.’” (Meaning he was well-liked by his players)

Coach Shula: “I couldn’t care less if my players like me; I want their respect, not their friendship.”

When is respect more important than being liked? It’s more important when …

What’s your one thing? High-performance entrepreneurs, teams and high performance organizations must know and focus on this one thing!

– By TC North, Ph.D.

Executive and sales teams I’ve worked with regularly give one another the finger and greatly appreciate the gesture! Where did this use of the finger originate? It comes from the 1991 movie “City Slickers,” an entertaining flick that combined philosophy and comedy (a “philomedy”)! In the movie, Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, and two of his buddies head off to New Mexico to “find themselves.” They take on the roles of cowboys and participate in a cattle drive headed by Curly, played by Jack Palance, a crusty but wise, tough-as-nails trail boss. After a rough beginning to their relationship, Mitch and Curly engage in a conversation that went like this: