Posts from Awesome Folks #141

A weekly round up of blog posts I've been reading

Emily Webber
February 21, 2025

Hello folks,

This week has been all about Teams and Social connections. I’m deep into reading The Social Brain, which has me thinking about group, committee, and team size and creating better connections. This book offers many great science-backed approaches that apply to many situations, including Communities of Practice (see my previous research here).

I will share more as I develop my new online course.

In the meantime, enjoy this week’s posts and happy Friday.

Emily

People and Culture

How do we create a genuine culture on a remote team?

Marissa Goldberg

How do we create a genuine culture on a remote team without happy hour type get-togethers? Team members keep mentioning their desire for more connections with colleagues but then don’t attend the social events. What do I do? Building culture is not as related to social events as most people be

www.remoteworkprep.com/blog/how-do-we-create-a-genuine-culture-on-a-remote-team

Corporate “DEI” is an imperfect vehicle for deeply meaningful ideals

Charity Majors

I have not thought or said much about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) over the years. Not because I don’t care about the espoused ideals — I suppose I do, rather a lot — but because corporate…

charity.wtf/2025/02/10/corporate-dei-is-an-imperfect-vehicle-for-deeply-meaningful-ideals

What Leaders Get Wrong About Employee Motivation

Marylène Gagné and Rebecca Hewett

Leaders’ flawed assumptions about employee motivation lead to counterproductive management tactics.

sloanreview.mit.edu/article/what-leaders-get-wrong-about-employee-motivation

How Leaders Champion Culture: Six Essential Lessons

Donald Sull and Charles Sull

Learn from six leaders whose records on building a values-driven culture stand out compared with their peers’.

sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-leaders-champion-culture-six-essential-lessons

Organisations and Systems

Communities of Practice and Building Capability

A conversation between Daniel Susser and Emily Webber, Author, consultant and creator of many cool collaboration tools

intelligentteams.substack.com/p/communities-of-practice-and-building

Facilitation and Decision making

5 Questions to Help Your Team Make Better Decisions

Steven Morris

In fast-paced, complex business environments, it’s often hard to carve out the time for thoughtful, thorough analysis. Leaders might recognize that better questions lead to better decisions, but they aren’t sure exactly what to ask. These five questions can help. 1) What would happen if we did nothing? 2) What could make us regret this decision? 3) What alternatives did we overlook? 4) How will we know if this was the right decision? 5) Is this reversible?

hbr.org/2025/02/5-questions-to-help-your-team-make-better-decisions

Other Things

Effective Storytelling: Bottom Line Up Front Explained

Jeff Gothelf

Want to nail every presentation? Use the **Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)** technique to grab attention instantly. Get to the point, back it with data, and make every word count. Here’s how!

jeffgothelf.com/blog/effective-storytelling-bottom-line-up-front-explained

Agile in the Ether, IRL: 2025 edition

Neil Vass

I’ve been part of the Agile in the Ether online meetup for years, and in 2024 we had a one-day, in real life event in Liverpool. It was so good we decided to do it again this year. Emily Webber has posted about how the overall event was planned and run – a good read! […]

neil-vass.com/agile-in-the-ether-irl-2025-edition