Would You Like a Balloon or a Lollipop?
It's a normal question: "We don't have any money in the budget to reward our project teams - what can we do?"
Well, you are in luck. Joran Beel just emailed me with a free online version of his new book Project Team Rewards - Rewarding and Motivating your Project Team. He asked me to share the link with my Carpe Factum readers. Now, when somebody does something this nice, I think it's in our best interest to provide him with timely, honest, and helpful feedback (and a big thank you for sharing his work).
Joran, thanks for providing this resource for my readers!
What about you? What are some creative "non-cash" rewards you've used to motivate your project teams?
It's really interesting to deal with people with low self-awareness. At one point in my career, I agreed to mentor a young professional, whom we'll call Kurt (not even remotely close to his real name). It seemed that Kurt was always putting his foot into his mouth and thereby became the lightning rod for office conflict. I listened intently to Kurt's version of conflict after conflict, in which he craftfully painted himself as an innocent victim of circumstance. What was really interesting was when people who knew that Kurt was seeking mentoring from me began approaching me. It became painfully obvious that Kurt was having difficulty controlling his mouth, and he was making very awkward and politically damaging comments around other people. An occasion arose once where I was able to ask him about a situation he had brought up. I knew the specifics from a reliable source, but he didn't know that I knew. Not a word was said about his role in the conflict. I asked him if he might have made some comments that were taken incorrectly by others, to which he responded that he had been a perfect gentleman. I made multiple attempts to get him to replay the meeting in his mind to see if the self-awareness switch was turned on, and nothing happened.
I love the blogosphere. Anybody who's been reading these posts for a while should understand the passion with which I've approached these relationships, the writing, and the reading. What's even more enjoyable is watching the relationships evolve and grow. For example, after over a year of commenting back and forth and sending occasional emails, 
When a 
What I'm so excited about this year are all of the friendships and relationships that have developed and fortified. This month alone, I've been reminded of how lucky I am to know so many great people... but not just know them... to call them friends. Some people say that social media will replace traditional relationships... to which I say, "PHOOEY!"
I'm thankful that a guy like 
Springboarding from my 
Ouch!
You just have to love dogs. No handshakes. No pleasantries. No faking it. If they want to get to know another canine, they just walk up and sniff the other dog's butt. With our prior dog, Casey, we got to the point where we would not tell her we were going to the pet supply store... we'd ask her if she wanted to "go sniff butts." She perked up, tail started wagging, and she ran to her leash. Our current dog, Zorro, doesn't quite have the same vernacular, but he knows the routine. When he meets another dog, the nose "goes below" and that's all the introduction he needs.
It's the day after Halloween. The fake cobwebs have come down. The sugar detox continues. But it's time to take off the masks and become real again. And I'm not just talking about the kids, either. How about some unmasking in the workplace as well?
