Steve Morris Archives - Price Associates

7 Questions to Help Employees Connect with “The Why”

Sharing the why, the value proposition, for what you are asking others to do can be an effective lever for setting up accountability. Value propositions seek to solve a problem and satisfy a need for a customer. When people know how their part of the job contributes to the value offered to the customer, and how their work directly impacts the customer’s perceptions, expectations and outcomes, they are much more likely to deliver their part of the work on time at the required specification and participate actively in improving results.

Your Negotiation Checklist

16 Steps to Accountable Negotiation

One of the first steps in setting up accountability after making a request or receiving one from another person is negotiating an agreement. If you are interacting with other people, at some point you will be required to negotiate. Negotiations can be simple or complex. What follows are 16 ideas about negotiation.

Read More

Making Small Adjustments for Small Changes

By Jill Morris and Steve Morris

When you drive a car, sail a boat, or fly an airplane, you are constantly making small adjustments in the steering to deal with shifts in wind, current, other traffic and road conditions. You must do the same when small changes occur in your environment that impact expectations. You are accountable for driving that clarity whether you are a manager or not.

There are both implicit and explicit accountabilities that we must manage. We tend to have a casual approach to implicit accountabilities, particularly around implied or unstated expectations, like you will come to work wearing clothing and some much less obvious.

Take Ownership with Accountability Questions

By Steve and Jill Morris

Organizational Accountability is owning the consequences of your choices in delivering the agreed-to results that everyone owns but no one person controls, and helping other people do the same.

This definition requires that you to set up clear accountabilities based on agreed-to results, otherwise you are leaving accountability to chance.

Are you taking the time to define, in the appropriate detail, exactly what you want others to agree to and deliver?
Are you asking for agreements or are you just assuming that they exist?
Are you confirming those agreements?
Are you tracking agreements people make with you?
Are you following up in a timely way to hold people accountable for the agreements they made with you?

There is nothing you have to learn to implement these ideas. To quote Yoda: “There is only do, or don’t do.” They just take practice.

Flexibility: Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

In this short video, Choice Works founder and TCL Faculty Member Steve Morris talks about Flexibility as a Leadership skill. He discusses how flexibility can be defined in many different ways depending on the circumstance.

Personal Accountability: Driving Expectations

In this short video, Choice Works founder and TCL Faculty Member Steve Morris talks about Personal Accountability as a leader. He discusses the Triangle of Choice, and how it can help you gain clarity and self-evaluation.

The One Factor That Makes Teams More Productive

by Steve Morris

A couple of engineers calculated that two Legos can be combined in 24 different configurations. Three come together in 1,560 ways and six can be configured in 915 million combinations. If this is true, how complex are the interactions between six people on a team? Read More

The Complexity of Conflict

Tips for Managing Conflict in the Workplace

By Steve & Jill Morris

Conflict is a part of life, especially in the business world where differing opinions and personalities can lead to a variety of conflicting situations. The key to developing effective conflict management skills is learning more about conflict and how it can be managed. Read More

4 Strategies For Clearly Communicating Expectations

By Steve Morris, Fast Company, June 2015

We once worked with Jack, a new leader who was having trouble getting his small team of programmers to deliver computer code on time and at the quality he expected.

Each Monday he assigned work verbally during brief phone meetings with his remotely located engineers. During one meeting he said: “We’ll need the code for the first page of the basket project by Friday.” Read More

16 Steps to Accountable Negotiation

OUR THINKING