Month: April 2025

leadership dot #4607: go undercover

April 30, 2025April 29, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

We take for granted that when we walk into a business, they will have what is necessary to function. I’m learning that is not always the case.

Yesterday at Chipotle, they were out of veggies. My friend paid in cash at the register, and they were out of singles, leaving them to give her almost $5 in quarters. Then I went to get a drink, and they were out of Coke and Mr.Pibb. Any one of those lapses would have been annoying but brushed off, but when there is an accumulation of problems (and not the first time similar things have happened at this restaurant), it points to a management problem.

It is also likely an upper management problem since no one seems to have corrected this pattern. Do they even notice it? If you have a front-facing business, it is to your benefit to employ/deploy secret shoppers. When I worked on campus, I learned so much from taking a class, from registration challenges, billing delays, the condition of classrooms, difficulty in navigating the learning management system, etc. They were all things I would have never seen from my office, but they were clear when I saw them from a student perspective. I wonder how a Chipotle exec would have felt about walking out with a pocket full of quarters.

You don’t have to be an undercover boss, but getting direct input from a user perspective is a valuable management tool. Craft ways to let others share their experiences about what your organization is really like.

leadership dot #4606: silent

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

I’m facilitating a session about having difficult conversations. My previous experience with this topic leads me to believe that the issue isn’t really how to have these uncomfortable communications — people know that they should address the issue. The real need is to inspire courage to have the conversation in the first place. We are masterful at procrastinating and rationalizing that things will work themselves out, that now isn’t the right time, or any other of a litany of excuses. Most would like to avoid the topic permanently.

It brings to mind a quote by Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax: “Silence always makes things worse; it just takes longer to get there.” How true! It’s so much easier to address an issue when it is a minor one. As we let things fester, the accompanying emotion causes the angst to grow exponentially, often leading to an irrational exchange once silence is broken.

If you have something that needs to be said, use your voice as soon as you come to that realization. It’s far better to clear the air and realign any misunderstanding than to let the void overtake you.

leadership dot #4605: demographics

April 28, 2025April 25, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

I recently attended a public event where community members were invited to share ideas for the region’s future. To capture the demographics of those who attended, people were asked to place stickers on each of several pie charts in the lobby. Pies were drawn on large sheets of butcher paper and included a chart for gender, age, and ethnicity.

In addition to providing attendance data for the sponsor, it served as a powerful visual for the participants to see that the demographics were heavily shifted in certain areas and that other groups had less representation and input at this event.

Consider the pie chart/sticker method the next time you wish to gather and display demographics in real time or don’t wish to put people on the spot by asking them directly.

leadership dot #4604: assumed

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

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences — the Academy Awards people — recently enacted a rules change that now requires Oscar voters to watch all the nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round. I couldn’t believe this rule had to be made, or that it just went into effect. Does this mean that people had previously been voting after only viewing a subset?

To most people, it would only make sense that you watched all the films before voting, or else how could you possibly know which one you felt was best? But increasingly, we need to spell out or codify behavior that used to be assumed or passed down as part of common social manners.

Are there practices that you believe are obvious but perhaps are not followed by all those in your organization? It might be in your best interest to be explicit about the actions you assume others will follow.

leadership dot #4603: hearing

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

It sounds like a gadget James Bond would have, but now there are eyeglasses with built-in hearing aids. Instead of having a separate device in your ear, a specialized pair of spectacles can do the job of two! And these aren’t hypothetical; they’re for sale at the vision center in the mall.

Many people are reluctant to get the hearing aids they need because of the stigma associated with them or the admission of being old. Perhaps the new glasses will change their minds and allow them to have the assistance they need to both hear and see better.

Like in dot # 4597, what two things can you combine to create something new?

leadership dot #4602: output

April 25, 2025April 24, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

My career in student activities taught me that it is usually better to focus on impact instead of inputs.

Having fewer well-attended events is preferable to many events with low attendance
Curating active student organizations beats having many groups with inactive rosters
Holding trainings for the engaged few is more productive than requiring a roomful who tune out

That mantra has stayed with me and made me keen to notice when others focus on quantity instead of quality, something that unfortunately happens with regularity.

The conference organizers schedule a multitude of simultaneous workshops and diffuse the attendance
Restaurants have such extensive menus that they lose their distinctiveness
Weddings turn into week-long extravaganzas that overshadow the actual ceremony
People have so many collectibles or decorations that it becomes impossible for the best ones to stand out

It’s ingrained in our capitalistic society that more is better. Try to disabuse yourself of that notion. More isn’t better. Better is better, and oftentimes that means doing less. Focus on impact, not input.

leadership dot #4601: hub

April 24, 2025April 23, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Long before collaboration was a common buzzword in business, five New York City newspapers partnered in 1846 to share information about the Mexican-American War. One editor realized there was great overlap and wasted resources with everyone trying to cover the conflict on their own, so he offered a joint partnership that carried news across the Gulf of Mexico, then via Pony Express and mail coach, before being transmitted over telegraph wire to the outlets. Today, 179 years later, that same practice occurs, but obviously via more sophisticated methods — and is known as the Associated Press.

The AP’s throwback lesson reminded me once again that history does repeat itself. I just finished a project about strengthening local journalism, and one of the recurring themes was to partner with others to create a “news hub” that deploys people to gather news and share it with multiple outlets. It may even help to have one consistent source of facts rather than each medium spinning the story their way.

While it’s easier today to do your own thing with digital tools instead of the arduous Pony Express, partnering is still a good option. Sharing resources, whether in journalism or other ventures, is good for economics and the environment, and often results in improved work products created from diverse perspectives. If others are doing the same thing, why not work together on the inputs to improve everyone’s outputs?

leadership dot #4600: ghosted

April 23, 2025April 22, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

I wanted to turn my rough patio into a sunroom and naively thought I could make that happen this year. I went to the home show and had a builder give an estimate — only they don’t do concrete work. So, I had a concrete guy come and measure for an estimate, but never received one or heard from him again. Even if he had followed through, I would have still needed another vendor to tear down the existing half-walls and yet another to landscape the new space. Assuming that I could even find someone interested in doing the work.

My friend is renovating an old home, and her contractor did a portion of the work and never even gave a quote on doing the rest. My sister is getting a $9K new sprinkler system in their condo building, and again, the vendor was a no-show/no-call at their installation appointment, negating all the effort to coordinate three units and evacuate five pets for the day. It is maddening.

General manners dictate that ghosting a friend or potential second date is impolite. That same principle applies to ignoring clients (or potential ones). If you can’t keep your schedule or don’t have capacity to do the work, a quick “no” is the proper response. No matter the circumstances, silence is not golden.

leadership dot #4599: irreversible

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

Today is Earth Day, an annual moment to pause and reflect on the value of the natural resources Mother Nature provides. It’s especially important this year, as many of those gifts are under assault with regulatory roll-backs and disregard for the fragile nature of the ecosystem. (Two examples: 1) executive orders seek to remove safeguards for a marine sanctuary and allow commercial fishing in the area, threatening the surrounding sea life, and 2) rollback of federal protections for endangered species strips “habitat destruction” from the list of prohibited actions.)

Certain decisions can be made, and if they don’t work out, you can reverse them. However, other choices are permanent and should be made with much more caution and forethought. Once you cut down a magnolia tree that Andrew Jackson planted at the White House in 1829, you can’t change your mind and put it back, or once you bulldoze over wetlands for a mining road, there is no undoing it.

Commemorate Earth Day today by taking steps to protect this fragile home of ours and asking your legislators to do the same.

Bison Buffalo herd in early morning light in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park

leadership dot #4598: 5 seconds

April 21, 2025April 18, 2025by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Author and influencer Mel Robbins promotes her 5 Second Rule as a tool to increase motivation and results. Robbins notes that a 5-second hesitation occurs between knowing what we should do and actually doing it. This pause occurs when we stop to think about how we feel about doing something. Robbins believes that learning to take action, no matter how you feel, is the key to success. If you can press ahead during those 5 seconds between thinking and doing, she claims your life will change.

It’s a myth that we only have to do what sounds appealing at the moment. Many would like to spend their day with little umbrella drinks at the beach, but instead we press on and rise from the cozy covers, get dressed, go to work, do errands, and move forward. If we realize that it’s likely we are going to end up doing the undesirables anyway, why not tackle them promptly?

Give Robbins’ theory a try this week. Once you know what you need to do, act on it, regardless of how you feel. Intentionally bypass those 5 seconds of second-guessing that will ultimately cause you to have guilt over not doing things you talk yourself out of.

Source: The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work and Confidence with Everyday Courage, 2017