IN MY TOOL BAG: Unresolve! Divest Yourself of What No Longer Serves
I am not a big fan of new year resolutions. Yes, I am a very goal-driven person, but the idea of adding more commitments to an already full list of promises I’ve made to myself and others stresses me out. If you follow my blog you know that I am a fan of a book […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: A Mindful Approach to Washing Hands
It seems like we’ve all been spending a lot of time engaging in two distinct activities lately — hand-washing and hand wringing (e.g., worrying about the future). The latter activity —worry — has us predicting or imagining a negative future and then living with that fear as if the future has already happened. Notice that […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: 3+3+3 Centering Practice
When friends ask me, “how’s your week going?” my most common response is “intense.” It’s not that my work is any more demanding than yours. It’s that I have a tendency to be hyper-focused —tuning out even my own basic needs, like food. While this characteristic makes me very productive, it can also deplete me […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: Meet IRMA — The Impact x Resources Matrix
Have you ever been part of a meeting that produced a terrifyingly long list of new projects and initiatives? As a client of mine recently described such a meeting, “It was an energizing and inspiring conversation right up until the point we realized we were going to have to implement all of these ideas!” Without […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: The Team Check-in
Most high performing teams run fast and furious. Moving at that kind of pace we often walk into our meetings and jump right into the agenda. While hitting the ground running may feel productive, something gets lost: We fail to look up from our devices and to-do lists, even if for a moment, to see […]
ON MY MIND: Leadership and the Art of Subtraction
In my free time, I carve wooden spoons. The process of carving a spoon is quite simple: Draw a spoon on a piece of wood and then carve away the extraneous material. Unlike art forms that are additive, spoon carving involves incremental subtraction — gradually taking away wood in order to reveal the spoon’s essential […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: The Power of a Project Charter
Your project team, task force, or committee got off to a fast and enthusiastic start but lately, it’s struggling to make progress. For every step forward it feels like the team takes three steps backward. You keep hitting bottlenecks and having to revisit decisions you thought were made. Team members are becoming frustrated with one […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: Empathy: Mastering the Vocabulary of Emotions and Needs
In last week’s blog, I explored the role of empathy in building a culture of candor on a team. I define empathy as the capacity to understand and acknowledge others’ feelings and needs. Over the years I’ve noticed that one barrier, particularly for men, is that we don’t always have a great vocabulary for feelings […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: Picture Card Decks
Using picture card decks in my work has made me a believer in the adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I have seen how visual images can elicit new insights, invite people to tap into their emotional selves, and reveal previously hidden aspirations. That’s why I always travel with a deck of […]
IN MY TOOL BAG: The Meeting Scorecard
More often than not, when I ask leaders, “How’d your meeting go?” they look at me sheepishly and answer with something like, “I’d like to think it went well. Nobody complained.” Despite the fact that meetings are an important business process in most organizations, “nobody complained” or “we made it through the agenda” are not […]