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Announcing Virtual Lost Dutchman game

Announcing Virtual Lost Dutchman game

Apologies. I have not posted in a good while as I tried to retire to Ecuador and had to kinda un-retire to bring out a new online version of our famous game, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. Plus, we are in the process of redoing much of our line art into a more colorful version for Square Wheels, different from the LEGO versions and much closer to the originals. So, stay…

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Engagement and The Boss - a Haiku

Engagement and The Boss – a Haiku

I was reading Dan Rockwell’s twitter feed, looking for some ideas to help frame up our new revision of the Seven Seas Quest team building game and thought to reframe one of his quotes about leadership and innovation.

Our new revision and repackaging will capture the theme of saving the world, reframing it to be about “saving the workplace” and focusing on collaboration as it relates to active…

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How can we impact workplace performance and innovation?

How can we impact workplace performance and innovation?

How can we impact workplace performance?

Perspective and Teamwork.

The consideration of New Possibilities.

Active engagement and active involvement with innovation.

Implementation, (at last in many cases).

And continuous continuous improvement.

Captured in one image, it might look something like this:

  Or, are you just too busy to improve and feel you need to continue to do things the same way.

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Thinking Agile, for MoreBetterFaster Improvements

GapingVoid had a nice image distributed through email with text that got me thinking about Square Wheels® and Agile Thinking that I reframed into my scheme of things. Their focus was on business thinking and being able to both think as well as act quickly and effectively.

It got me thinking about the Wagon Puller’s natural reaction combined with the agile thinking of the Wagon Pushers, whose…

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Too Busy to Improve?

Too Busy to Improve?

There is a lot of background around this new poster, and a few different versions of things. But the basic idea is about how ideas are handled.

Here, a person (an outsider, an employee, another wagon puller?) is trying to share a Best Practice, the idea of using a ROUND wheel. But, the wagon puller is simply too busy to listen, much less to stop.

HOW do we get organizations to understand the…

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Thoughts on Knowledge and Thinking

Thoughts on Knowledge and Thinking

A reality is that ALL of us know more than ANY of us, and we are often blind to new ideas because we are so invested and embedded in the old paradigms.

Sometimes, it is a really good idea to simply STOP pushing and pulling and have a discussion about issues and opportunities.

What we COULD learn is maybe more important than what we think we know.

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a…

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Leadership: Playing The Fool

Leadership: Playing The Fool

ASKING for ideas is a powerful way to drive active involvement and participative learning within a workgroup. It can build teamwork and peer pressure for improvement and the reality is that asking is a hell of a lot better than telling, since you will not generate active or passive resistance.

Play the Fool. Ask your people for their ideas. And be surprised at what you hear.

Then, implementsome,…

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Take the Time Needed to Change and Improve

Take the Time Needed to Change and Improve

It is oft-said that Time changes Things, and maybe there is some truth to that. The notion of entropy says that things eventually reduce themselves. But in the case of real people doing real things, just letting time pass is probably not going to be a great way to approach making improvement.

Take the time to step back from the wagon.

Take the time to involve and engage others in discussing new…

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Round Today, Square Tomorrow

Round Today, Square Tomorrow

The Big Idea is Continuous Continuous Improvement, because what works smoothly today will invariably not work as well in the future.

The keys include perspective, collaboration and teamwork to implement and adjust those new processes.

Things will work better then, but the process will repeat.

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization…

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Dream to fly or dream to dream? On Caterpillars and Butterflies

Dream to fly or dream to dream? On Caterpillars and Butterflies

I was looking for something else and came across this old line art poster when I did a lot of work on managing and leading change. I thought it was a good one!

  What are your thoughts on change and possibilities?

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement products. Managing Partner of Performance Management Companysince 1984,…

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Thinking about Thinking

There are all kinds of “contemplation figures” out there. I thought to add one more, this one around possibilities.

Your thoughts?

  One needs to stop pushing and pulling, or at least ask for some outside opinion, right?

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement products. Managing Partner of Performance Management Companysince…

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This is from one of my colleagues, in India, working with a wide variety of multinationals. We strongly believe that The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is one of the world's best simulations focused on collaboration and leadership and organizational alignment.

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Don't Just DO Something! Stand There... A Square Wheels Poster

Don’t Just DO Something! Stand There… A Square Wheels Poster

Instead of our usual poem or haiku or quote offering, this post shares one of the Square Wheels Poster Images, something you can download and print. The message is clear, whether it is for coaching or for facilitating a team discussion about issues and opportunities.

This is loaded up as a high resolution image and a click should allow you to download. If there are any issues or problems, pop me…

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A Coaching Haiku around Round Wheels

A Coaching Haiku around Round Wheels

I’m going to be completing a complete redo of our Coaching Tools toolkit soon, one that embeds a series of our LEGO® Square Wheels® scenes and themes. So, I thought to warm up my brain and do an illustrated business haiku, just for you.

Your thoughts?

The basic idea of the image is that people find the implementation of new and better ideas to be motivational, once they get past the struggles of…

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Business Haiku on Motivation and Teamwork

Business Haiku on Motivation and Teamwork

The View at the Front of the Wagon is a very different one than The View at the Back of the Wagon.

There is that old quote that if you don’t know where you are going, any path will get you there. In a team-based performance situation, it is WAY worse than that, in that the people at the back of the wagon could probably care less about where you need to go. After all, all they see are boards and…

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"My Team, My Team" - a poem on teamwork

“My Team, My Team” – a poem on teamwork

Teamwork is an important thing in most organizations. But “Interdepartmental Collaboration” remains an oxymoron, too.

Most managers do not collaborate because their measurement systems are not aligned to measure collaborative results and bonuses and promotions are based on competition and “winning.”

And a wide variety of research demonstrates that the competition is measurably sub-optimizing and…

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See the article in Wired about the Camper Workers who travel the country in their RVs and work for a pittance for companies like Amazon. Some sad stories.

Could you please send my thanks to whoever is making more assembly workers!! My favorite tribe.

Will do.