abdicate word in a dictionary. abdicate concept. DepositPhotos. Licensed.

Does Risk Management Encourage the Abdication of Accountability by Managers?

Forrest Christian Overachievers 1 Comment

“Managers should never be allowed to abdicate their management accountabilities and authorities by having HR do what is their job!” I learned this from management guru and past president of Forrest & Company, Nick Forrest (no relation) several years ago when I had the good fortune to work with him briefly. Why mention HR when in a discussion about Risk …

Depression: Unemployed;destitute man leaning against vacant store:photo by Dorothea Lange, circa 1935

The Trauma of Unemployment

Forrest Christian Careers 2 Comments

So, you lost your job. Maybe it really is a “killer job market”. Yet here you are, sending out more resumes, hitting “Apply” in the job website, making the rounds. And nothing seems to be working. You keep at it, but it’s getting tiring. Your spouse, originally so supportive, is asking how long this is going to take. “Mary lost …

Tower of Babel (Rotterdam) by Pieter Bruegel. Via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Why We Talk Past Each Other at Work: The 7 Decision Languages

Forrest Christian Overachievers 3 Comments

I recently sat through a meeting where the discussants, all intelligent people who care deeply about the work under discussion, argued deeply and long without much actually happening. You’ve been in these, too, and you’ve also been frustrated by how people don’t understand when you start talking about what we need to do. But I now don’t have to live …

Teams are about who is in them: The Imaginist

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What does a team do? It depends on who is in it.  The Imaginist decision maker sees teams as “teams of persons”. You can’t determine what is should be done until you analyze who is going to do it. Work cannot be separated from who does it because, for the Imaginst, it’s all about the person. Lots of ex-programmers seem …

Manhattan Bridge under construction-1909

Talking about Teaming: The 7 Languages of Action

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As I try to get “team” better defined, one of the biggest problems I have — and one shared by Requisite Agility as a whole — is that people use words differently to talk about decisions about action. Teams, as I have started defining them, are all about doing something together, working to a purpose. How we talk about decisions …

Adam naming the animals, Christ Church Cathedral, High Street, Dublin (by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Start with the Naming of Things

Forrest Christian RequisiteAgility 1 Comment

As I start things back up in support of the Requisite Agility movement, it’s a good idea to begin with the basics: name things clearly. The naming of things is important. In the Jewish Bible, it’s the first thing God has the first man do: And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl …