Extraordinary management requires extraordinary thinking, and these creative workplace strategies are proven to supercharge team productivity over a sustained period. The following are innovative ideas used in companies all over the world to help high-performance teams crank efficiency up a few notches. 1. Schedule a FedEx Day Australian software company Atlassian holds what it calls FedEx…

You read it right. I have a surefire way to make this your best year…ever. It does not have anything to do with how many more books you read or how much better your productivity becomes. Instead, it’s the addition of what I consider to be the missing element in many people’s personal or business…

Whether you’re a high-flying manager tasked with leading your team into battle in the latest big company mission, or looking to get a passion project off the ground, falling into that most counterproductive of traps and trying to do everything yourself can be all too easy. After all, these projects are your babies; their success –…

Working as part of a team and staying connected while doing so is a challenge, and there have been few (if any) easy and reasonably-priced software solutions that handle it well. Until today. Asana has left beta and is now available to the general public. And it has a lot to offer. This web application…

Humor and laughter provide so many rewards. Studies have shown 20 seconds of laughter yield the same benefits as 3 minutes of hard rowing. A Robert Half International study reported 84% of executives believe a worker with a good sense of humor does a better job. Incorporating humor more effectively in the workplace allows…

You want engagement. But no one’s buying. If you want something done you have to spell it out in detail, or even give up and get to that ugly “I’ll just do it myself” place of the defeated manager. You feel like every time you turn your back, the wheels come off the bus again. You’ve got zero engagement.

So how do you fix that?

It looks like much of the gold that was brought to China for this year’s Olympics will remain there after the games’ end. Michael Phelps’ legendary 8 gold medals for the US team helped the Americans bring up their count but not nearly enough to keep them in the top spot for winning gold since…

David Seah writes probably one of my favorite articles in a while, the difference between Collaboration and Scheming. Being a Schemer at heart, it’s nice to read an objective comparison between the two and what the difference boils down to. According to Seah, it’s an ‘emotional vs rational duality’. So what does one expect from a good…

Trust is an essential component in almost all dealings between human beings, other than outright hostile ones like wars and terrorism. It is certainly vital for the proper running of any organization, as well as for almost all the components of trade and commerce. Lack of trust between trading partners undermines the proper functioning of…

Trust in other people is one of the foundations for creating a civilized working environment. Many managers are overworked primarily because of a lack of trust. They take on too much themselves, because they don’t trust their subordinates to do the work properly. They cannot allocate enough time to their own work, because they don’t…

Oh, sure, you can see why Superman’s all great and wonderful and all that, but you know what? He took off. Just after Superman 2 (in movie continuity), the Big Blue Boy Scout takes off to go check out a rumor. This little jaunt leaves Earth without someone to catch all those falling planes for…

In multi-team meetings, there are frequently situations where people within the same team contradict one another. I might view the project as being accomplished in one way; my colleague might come right behind me and say it can’t be done that way. If there’s any sense of time available to get things done, take that…