Michael Nir > Quotes

“Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.               --Harry S Truman”
― Michael Nir, Silent Influencing - Employing Powerful Techniques for Influence and Leadership

“Stubbornness pays! We tend to think that it doesn’t, we might be hesitant to be stubborn – however only the stubborn succeed.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Situational leadership articulates that effective leaders are the ones able to change their behavior according to the situation at hand. It identifies leadership styles relevant to specific situations.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Relationships are of keen interest to successful team managers”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Must have #2: effective communications Must have #3: improve and maintain positive relationships between members Must have #4: clarify roles and responsibilities Must have #5: enhance mutual trust Must have #6: solve problems and make effective decisions Must have #7: value and promote diversity Must have #8: successfully manage conflict Must have #9: provide development opportunities and recognition”
― Michael Nir, Highly Effective Teams: Unleash the Power of Exceptionally Cohesive Teams

“Through collaborative problem-solving approaches, human capital is turned into an individual sense of ownership.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“The clearer and more simply the vision is stated, the easier it is for team members to buy into it.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Leaders usually need to be directive and supportive during the forming stage,”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Ownership means that team members acknowledge responsibility for work and its results as a facilitator or strategist joined in collaboration.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“stories. It is unimportant, disregard”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“global virtual high performance teams revolve around four concepts: (1) relationships, (2) accountability, (3) networking, and (4) leadership.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“A vision is a picture of where you want to get to, not the path to get there.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“It has been said that because we have been given two ears and only one mouth, we should listen twice as much as we talk. Listening is an art form, and asking questions is a tool to active listening.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“People use the word “should” to mask their wish or need. Instead of directly stating what they want, they construct a stipulation without naming a person responsible for carrying it out.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Actually, what Tina is saying is, “I want to focus on production levels.” Many times, people use “should” instead of “I want”; this is the case with parents and children. The admonition of, “You should be nice” is actually saying, “I want you to be nice.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“A positive environment can’t happen if team members are negative toward one another. It’s the team leader’s place to put an end to this as soon as it starts.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“leaders are also representatives of company policies, processes, and procedures.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“High power high interest stakeholders – manage closely; High power low interest stakeholders – keep satisfied; Low power high interest stakeholders – keep informed; Low power low interest stakeholders – monitor with minimal effort.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“According to the findings, the most effective team building practices in creation of virtual networks of practice are: ‘(1) recruitment and selection; (2) training and development; (3) rewards and recognition; (4) supervisory support; (5) rules regarding knowledge disclosure; (6) time pressure; and (7) collaborative programs and projects (Jolinka and Dankbaar”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Cohesiveness is defined as a strong sense of connectedness among team members that causes them to work together to attain an objective.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Try masks the intent and carries an element of implicit failure within the message. As Yoda said, you either do it or you don’t, there is no try.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“It has been said that we have been given two ears and only one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk. Listening is an art form, and asking questions is a tool to active listening. Yet, asking”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Thomas Alva Edison, the great American inventor, once said: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Edison knew the power of failure in giving us a feedback, on what we are doing wrong, and how we can improve ourselves. Many people we know are afraid of taking the first step, taking a risk and moving away from their comfort zone. They are afraid of the difficulty that the first step poises. Of”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“The second word often used without understanding the implication is “should.” ‘Should” has a flavor of admonition, guilt, and manipulation, especially when other people are using it by blurting out-loud a general statement with the word “should.” For example: “You should always finish what you’re eating and never leave anything on the plate.” Also: “This should have been completed by now.” And yet another: “You should not get up before the manager has left.” For example, Tina writes: Tina answers, “We should focus on production levels because this is what is driving the transfer to production; trust me, I’ve been here and have seen these projects many times.” In this case, Tina is using “should” to reprimand the team and also to have it her way by defining an imaginary rule and enforcing it upon the team.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Thinking Alert: Monitor the “shoulds” in your teams. They are barriers to effective communication and reduce the potential power of the team.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Leaders facilitating team responsibilities must link accountability to motivation in order to be highly effective.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“Eliciting the user stories is a dynamic collaborative endeavor which supports the concept of value. Essentially, just gathering requirements will populate the backlog with unnecessary user stories that do not contribute value.”
― Michael Nir, Agile project management : Agile Product Owner Secrets Valuable Proven Results for Agile Management Revealed

“Describe the behavior you would like to see, rather than the behavior you don’t want to see.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“has been said that we have been given two ears and only one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth

“A positive environment can’t happen if team members are negative toward one another.”
― Michael Nir, Agile scrum leadership : Influence and Lead ! Fundamentals for Personal and Professional Growth