I add this tag line to all me emails and wanted to share with a wonderful set of web sites around GREAT WORK. I first read about this from Michael Bungay Stanier, a wonderful, creative coach, speaker, and consultant. The tag on his web site is : “Do Less Good Work. Do More Great Work.”

Leaders of initiatives, teams, projects, and other groups continually face helping their teams aspire to Great Work. Michael’s work is insightful and provides a ranges of tools, movies, templates, that can be applied immediately.

His recent blog post on sources of inspiration and possibilities is spot on for these times. Here he explains how Great Work differs from Good Work:

“Here’s my litmus test. Great Work brings with it both exhilaration and terror. You’re delighted when someone asks you what you do. You tap into reserves of courage and chutzpah to get done what needs to be done. You often have no idea how to do what needs to be done, and are only a little fazed by that (check out Peter Block’s latest, The Answer to How Is Yes). It is a place of inspiration, where suddenly all your past makes sense (”a-ha! That’s why I did that, learned that, experienced that”). It is a place that honors your skills, your passion and your experience.

With Good Work, there is no shame attached. You’re doing work that uses your skills, it gets stuff done, it may well pay you a wage. It’s not that you’re having a bad time. It’s just that when you’re asked at parties what you do, sometimes it feels like you’re trying to convince yourself that this is great. And in a year’s time, you probably can’t remember what it was you were doing a year ago.

And as for Bad Work, this is when you sit and ask yourself: why exactly am I wasting my life with this?”

At the Wall Street Journal’s D7 All Things Digital confab (Fascinating interviews and videos). Carol Bartz’s-Yahoo CEO-interview with WSJ’s Kara Swisher provided several insights on culture, structure, and need for leadership at her new digs.

“He drew arrows everywhere. It looked like a Dilbert cartoon.” – Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the org chart that company co-founder Jerry Yang drew for her while wooing her for the CEO job Yahoo, “frankly, could use a little management.“

This whole business that there’s no longer innovation at Yahoo is craziness, says Bartz. So what’s the problem then, asks Kara. Bartz said internal politics and strife have undermined the company–homepage battles over Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, for example. The problem in a nutshell: “You can’t take nine women and make a baby in the month; there is a process.”

Kara: “Why did you come to Yahoo? Or rather, why the hell did you come to Yahoo and what did you think of Yahoo when you were first approached to lead the company?” Bartz says Jerry Yang approached her at a board meeting to gauge her interest and she told him to go away. “I’m not the right person.” Kara: Then why did you continue? Bartz says Yang approached her again and she agreed to talk to him, essentially to be cordial. “I said ‘well Jerry, why don’t you draw me an org chart?’ And he pulls an org chart out of the closet and starts drawing Yahoo’s org.” Bartz says she was incredulous at what she saw. “He drew arrows everywhere. It looked like a Dilbert cartoon.” Yahoo needed some structure, and I’m actually quite good at that, says Bartz. So I took the job.

Kara wonders if Yahoo needs another charismatic leader, in addition to Bartz–an Internet visionary type to match her business acumen? Bartz says no. “I don’t need a No. 2 because I don’t want to be removed from the business.” My job is to ask questions. Why do I have to know it all? I’m smart enough to ask, “Is that the best you can do?” or “Does that really have to work that way?” It’s a management issue.

Our own Bob Sutton, Stanford professor and faculty member of the Stanford Advanced Project Management Program (SAPM), has a lead story in the June Harvard Business Review, How To Be A Good Boss in Bad Times.  Here Bob up close and personal by signing up for our SAPM courses at Stanford.  Bob was also interviewed by McKinsey Quarterly on being a good boss in bad times–see video here.

Here’s the exec summary: (more…)

Grove Consultants provides a range of services, tools, guides, and models for enhanced meeting facilitation and organizational change.  Any of us leading teams, projects or organizations will benefit from the wisdom and experience of their approach.

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