Kimberly Wiefling

The word “intractable” supposedly originated in the mid 16th century, causing me to postulate that really tough problems didn’t exist on this planet before then.  Standing before an intractable problem is kind of like being told you have to eat an entire Cadillac.  Technorati Tags: barriers, Breakthrough, Commitment, Impossible, Intractable, Negative-Thinking, Obstacles, Problem

When you encounter a problem that seems hauntingly familiar, you are not dealing with an ordinary thorn in your side.  You are facing a recurring problem.  You know the kind of problem I’m talking about . . . the one that, even while you are “solving it”, you have a funny feeling you’ll be seeing [...]

Here it is, Christmas day, and I sure hope Santa brought you everything you wanted.  At first I hesitated to say that, knowing that many people on this earth are not Christians, but last week in Tokyo, where people are primarily Shintos and Buddhists, Christmas preparations were in full force.  For many people it’s just [...]

Once in a while I get the urge to wear some insanely high heeled shoes.  After an evening of wobbling about on these treacherous stilts my feet feel like they’ve been tossed into a dryer with a couple of cement blocks.  Ouch!  Why do I do it?  This is just one of many examples of [...]

Sometimes we think we are dealing with problems, but we’re not.  If it’s something you can tolerate, and not worth fixing, then it’s not a problem at all, it’s an irritant.  Don’t waste your time thinking about it unless you think it’s gonna grow into a real, live problem.  And, if money can solve it, [...]

Where I live in the Silicon Valley, on the west coast of Obama country, this time of year most people are busy celebrating one holiday or another.  It’s a season I’ve come to call the “alcoholidays” for obvious reasons.  So in order to stay off of the streets and have a credible excuse for not [...]

Most of my work revolves around the power of creating breakthroughs through extreme optimism and hideously positive thinking for which “hyperbole” simply isn’t a big enough word. I frequently rant and rave about the hazards of know-it-alls who poo-poo every idea and wield their negativity like a scythe, cutting down anything new or imaginative in [...]

Thomas Edison, when asked why he had a team of twenty-one assistants “If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.” Another rather amusing fellow I know said “There is no “I” in TEAM, but there is an “I” in WIN!” Whatever your philosophy, working in a team is challenging, especially when separated by [...]

I recently spent 4 days working in Mexico for the first time.  Eye-eye-eye!  What a place!  There wasn’t a Taco Bell in sight.  The tequila was more aromatic than the most savory brandy, and the seafood was as fresh as a daisy, served raw like the sushi in Japan, but with incredible spices and sauces [...]

The process of becoming a great leader is a perpetual quest. It is an endless journey of self-discovery. Just like going to church, you can never be “done”. There will be successes along the way, but no failures, only feedback from which you can choose to learn and grow. Sometimes the challenges you face will [...]

When I worked at HP/Agilent back in the 1990′s we focused mostly on the US market and a bit on Europe. Now my friends who still work there are making frequent visits to India, China and Poland, markets that were too minuscule to warrant any significant R&D budget, and certainly not personal visits more than [...]

Leading organizations is like leading a swarm of bees. You can’t directly control what’s going on, and the statistics indicate that most organizational leaders aren’t doing a very good job of it. A Harris Poll found that only 15% of people knew their orgs most important goals, over half of employees don’t know what to [...]

Leading a team presents greater challenges than working alone, but if you want to accomplish tasks that are impossible for one person you’ve got to have a team. One person can’t play a baseball game by themselves, play all of the instruments in a live symphony performance, or run a global company. What’s the difference [...]

If you are going to lead hordes of peeps someday you’d better start by being able to lead a single individual. Pretty much the only way we have of directly leading another person is through communication, and I sure as heck don’t mean email! (Talking face-to-face is fraught with plenty of misunderstandings, and I’ve often [...]

There was a story about a business school that had the question “Are you a leader?” on their application. Seems like a trick question, right? So everyone except one person answered “Yes” that year. The guy who answered “:No” agonized over submitting that answer because he figured that his application might be rejected as a [...]

Lately I have trouble saying “project management” because, when I do, I always have the urge to blurt out “You can manage cows, but you must LEAD people!” So I’m going to dedicate this week’s blogs to exploring leadership with no apologies to leaving out “management”, and even “project”, every now and then. Most of [...]

Making due with too little food and a few scraps of sleep might be appropriate for an outdoor survival course or a military boot camp, but it’s no way to treat yourself when you’re a project manager. Sure, you’re busy with wall-to-wall meetings, ubiquitous email and a non-stop line of people barking at your office [...]

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a novice project manager was burning bridges that I would later need to walk across. Heck, I was a friggin’ arsonist! If someone on my team didn’t do their action item, I’d chew their ass and then came back and do it again before it even had [...]

More self-inflicted project wounds . . . Some project managers seem to think that projects should proceed in a sensible and reasonable fashion, enjoying the cooperation and support of executives, team members, vendors and customers. Not so! Team members are put on this earth to ignore voice mails, email and action item due dates. Executives [...]

Project managers can’t afford to be overly timid or self-effacing. They must be self-assured and determined in order to be successful leaders. However this sometimes leads to one of the most ghastly self-inflicted wounds of project management, that is the project leader who hasn’t yet learned to use “we” and avoid the word “I” in [...]

There is a group of forensic chemists who gather periodically for something called “The Bite-mark Breakfast”, where they are treated to a slide show of various bite marks which they attempt to identify while enjoying their eggs, sausage and toast. (This popped into my head this morning as I was feeding my cat. She was [...]