Stop Wasting Precious Time and Money
You have a complex problem at work, and you know the standard solutions:
hire a consultant, enlist a superstar employee, have more meetings about
it. In short, spend money and hours to dig your way out. But you've been
down this road before--the so-called solution consumes your time,
dollars, and resources, and yet the problem still reappears.
There is a way out of this cycle. Organizational researchers Tanya Menon
and Leigh Thompson, experts in collaboration and creativity, identify
five spending traps that lead to this wasteful "action without traction"
The Expertise Trap: recycling old solutions on current problems
The Winner's Trap: investing additional resources into failing
projects
The Agreement Trap: avoiding conflict to feel like a team player
The Communication Trap: communicating too frequently over too many
channels
The Macromanagement Trap: assuming your employees don't need your
direction
Menon and Thompson combine their own research with other findings in
psychology to provide strategies to break these unproductive habits and
refine your skills as a manager. From shaping problems in new ways and
learning from failure through experimentation, to stimulating productive
conflict and structuring coordinated conversations, you can escape these
traps and discover the value hidden in your organization--without
spending a dime.
