Month: March 2025

leadership dot #4577: re-forming

March 31, 2025March 28, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

I recently facilitated a session on team dynamics and included the seminal work by Bruce Tuckman on the stages of group development. Tuckman’s theory states that groups go through four stages: Forming, Storming (when the inevitable conflict arises), Norming (conflict is resolved and the group begins to cooperate), and Performing (where results are produced).

A question was asked about groups that are continually changing, with new members coming in before the team can coalesce into the Performing stage. My advice: repeat the Forming stage each time but work to truncate it for the group. If a new member joins, spend the time onboarding them as soon as they are selected. Share written records right away. Meet with them in advance of the first meeting to get them up to speed. Pair them with a buddy who can explain nuances during meetings. Take the time to introduce them to other members before their first meeting so it’s not all new to them. You still should do introductions and take steps to build trust among the group, but what you do from the very start can make a big difference in how quickly the Forming stage lasts.

Each time even one new member enters the group, it’s a new group. Be intentional about Forming, again and again. Don’t make the mistake of continuing as you were without taking the time to re-form with your new configuration.

leadership dot #4576: benches

March 30, 2025March 28, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Ever since my sister pointed them out, I have been paying attention to benches in public spaces. Some cities or campuses have benches with dividers in the middle. You also see these frequently in airports and waiting areas as they are intentionally designed to discourage people from lying down or sleeping there. Other cities have embraced the flip side of that, intentionally utilizing seating areas that invite people to lean back and rest for a moment.

Bored Panda created a collection of the “92 most creative benches and seats ever” and they include many that encourage the prone position, highlighting that benches can be beautiful as well as welcoming.

You may not think something as simple as a bench could make a statement about you, but it does. Welcoming? Artsy? Pragmatic? Restrictive? Sit with your decision for a while and consider what values you wish to communicate with your choice of seats.

Seat on a Boston street that discourages lying down; Seat at MIT that encourages it

leadership dot #4575: staying relevant

March 29, 2025March 28, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Hallmark continues to evolve its product line to remain in sync with its audience. They have gone beyond the traditional pre-printed cards and expanded into photo cards—individual cards that they will personalize and send or groups of cards that can be used for invitations.

Hallmark understood that money is a preferred gift, but sending money in a card through the mail is ill-advised. So, now Hallmark has partnered with Venmo to allow Venmo greetings to be included in their cards, and they have collaborated with many retail and restaurant vendors to allow gift cards to be sent in conjunction with a Hallmark card.

The Hallmark app allows users to create cards that can be sent from there, and the app can be customized to send reminders for all the user’s card-giving occasions.

The audience that purchases a standard send-a-card-in-the-mail is shrinking, but innovations at Hallmark may keep the company from becoming obsolete. Think about how you can adapt your offerings to stay relevant in changing times.

leadership dot #4574: hard choices

March 28, 2025March 27, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplett1 Comment

Social media is flooded with ads and cat videos but every now and then something is shared that sticks with me. Such was the case with a meme by The Minds Journal about choosing your hard. It read:

Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.
Obesity is hard. Fit is hard. Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.
Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Choose wisely.

I have thought of this on several occasions when I did not want to do something that was hard, such as choosing between spending hours creating a new session or disappointing a client. It came to mind when others were lamenting having to choose, such as a college freshman who could continue struggling in class or find the success center and get help. Neither option was easy. Choose your hard.

We waste time and energy avoiding the hard in hopes of finding an easy path, but often there is not one. Instead of holding out for an elusive solution, stop expecting it to be easy and get busy acting on the wisest hard option.

leadership dot #4573: friendships

March 27, 2025March 25, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

For me, one of the most interesting pieces of the Let Them Theory book was the chapter on adult friendships. Author Mel Robbins notes that as children, you were in lock-step with your friends: same age, milestones, school, routine, and often, after-school activities. Friendship was a group sport, she writes.

Then, after “the great scattering” when friends are no longer spending most of their time together, friendship changes to an individual sport where it becomes harder to find your people. You start interacting with others who are at different stages of life and have different routines instead of being part of the group structure that was built in as part of childhood. Hmm — I had never looked at it that way, but it certainly is true.

Think about the people that were your friends in childhood or college and of all the natural interactions that made those friendships possible. You were close — maybe even living together in college, all at the same point in the life cycle, and you found friends that fit. Now, you work and live near different generations, making it harder to have common interests and routines that intersect. And everyone else is in the same boat!

To cultivate new friendships in the adult world, Robbins believes three pillars must be present: proximity, timing (same stage in life), and energy (“clicking” with people). She recommends going first when any of these pillars are present and making the effort to introduce yourself or invite others to see if a friendship can blossom. Keep Robbins’ advice in mind the next time you’re involved with others who pique your interest. The other person may be as anxious as you are to have a new buddy in their life.

Source: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, 2024

leadership dot #4572: let them

March 26, 2025March 25, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Author and podcaster Mel Robbins has created a buzz around her “Let Them” theory, a mindset hack that is as simple as it is effective. She says, “When you “let them” do whatever it is that they want to do, it creates more control and emotional peace for you and a better relationship with the people in your life.”

Robbins advocates saying “let them” to yourself whenever someone is exhibiting behavior you can’t control, whether something as simple as slowing down the checkout line or something as serious as excessive drinking. Just say “Let them.”

But Part 2 of her theory is where the hard work is — saying “Let Me.” Yours is the only behavior you can control, so it becomes up to you to determine what you will do as a result of others’ actions. You let them act how they wish, but if it negatively impacts you or goes against your values, then “let me” change my behavior in response.

Your classmates in a group project are slacking off. Let them. Let me decide that I want to carry the ball to get the grade that impacts me. A company supports candidates who have vastly different political views. Let them. Let me decide where I shop. Your boss treats you unfairly. Let them. Let me start looking for a new job.

Robbins implores you to stop wasting your energy or becoming upset because of what others do. None of your huffing and puffing will change their actions so “let them.” Instead, focus on the only behavior you can influence — “let me.”

Source: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, 2024.

leadership dot #4571: forecasting

March 25, 2025March 25, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

While it has been interesting to watch the NCAA basketball tournament, what has really fascinated me is monitoring the brackets. Over 34 million people submitted online bracket guesses! By the end of the first round, only 181 perfect ballots survived, and after the weekend ZERO perfect ballots remained. In fact, there has NEVER been a verifiably perfect submission!

Keep that in mind when you are off on some of your estimates or your projections do not turn out as planned. While many just guess when filling out their brackets, the seedings were done by people who know the sport, teams, and players intimately and were armed with mounds of data about every minute statistic of the season. A group of people put their best thinking together and came up with rankings, yet there is a number 10 seed, two number six seeds, and a five seed in the Sweet Sixteen. If the committee was spot-on, perfect ballots would exist.

You may have all of the empirical information, but it’s impossible to account for the human factor and environmental conditions that more often than not alter the final result. You may be asked to provide revenue estimates, talent projections, or other forecasting scenarios but even with knowledge and data, no perfect outcome can be expected, even from the experts.

leadership dot #4570: revisited

March 24, 2025March 20, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Last year, Illinois passed legislation creating a 20-member commission to review the state flag. Its charge was to determine whether a new state flag “would better represent the state’s diversity of urban, suburban, and rural communities and inspire renewed state pride among Illinoisians.”

I can only imagine the work that went into this project — approving the law, appointing the commissioners, soliciting submissions, reviewing 4,800 of them, and creating a process that received nearly 385,000 votes. The end result? The current flag was the winner.

It is a worthwhile exercise to redesign a flag to remove a Confederate symbol (as Georgia and Mississippi have) but to invest resources in such an elaborate process because of personal preferences seems to be unnecessary.

There are times when revisiting a policy or reviewing materials is prudent to help reaffirm values or ensure that practices are in line with changing circumstances. But certain things should remain constant. Not every idea needs to be run up the flag pole.

leadership dot #4569: her she

March 23, 2025March 20, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

An astute person at Hershey saw an opportunity to leverage the brand name to celebrate Women’s History Month. The company packaged its chocolate bars in such a way as to highlight the HER and SHE portions and then used the pronouns to add a message about women.

With HER strength SHE creates champions
With HER love SHE inspires
With HER hands SHE moves the voiceless

It was on-brand and on-target to match the holiday. I’ve seen Hershey bars for 60+ years and never made that connection. Maybe there is something about your brand or name that you could see with new eyes.

Screenshot

leadership dot #4568: read

March 22, 2025March 20, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

I’ve heard of professors who bury a key instruction far into their syllabus to uncover whether students have actually read its contents. Apparently, the same principle applies to the instructions on the massage chair in the mall:

While there is a purpose behind the professor’s strategy, I can’t imagine there is an intentional rationale that applies to this manner of pricing. Proofread, people!