ON MY MIND: The Lifeblood of your Team
Imagine your team is a living organism — one whose health relies on a network of pathways that carry all the necessary nutrients to its various parts. Now imagine that the lifeblood of your team is made up of requests and promises. Think about this for a moment: There is a constant exchange of requests […]
ON MY MIND: The Myth of the Leader as “Talker-in-Chief”
Years of research show that top-down declarations and being “talked at” demotivates people, discourages the expression of diverse perspectives, and stalls organizational learning and change efforts. This leaves me puzzled when, at least a few times a week, I receive emails promoting professional leadership workshops on how to say things in ways that will sound […]
ON MY MIND: Coming Back Together (Part 3)
If you have read part 1 and part 2 of this blog about coming back together, you have probably asked yourself the questions: What does coming together actually look like in the face of charged political differences? How do we build empathy and understanding across differences without avoiding our honest disagreements? A new short documentary […]
ON MY MIND: Coming Back Together (Part 2)
After describing the dynamics of polarization in a previous blog, this second installment will highlight Parker Palmer’s essay entitled, “Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy.” It contains important insights on how we come back together in our families, work places, communities and our country. I’m taking some liberties with these five habits to […]
ON MY MIND: Coming Back Together (Part 1)
Nearly everywhere I look I see communities, families, and friends mired in division, derision, and despair. Increasingly, we talk about those who are working toward different outcomes not as our opponents but as our enemies. And when it comes to enemies, we feel self-justified in doing whatever we must in order to win. We live […]
IN MY EARBUDS: Where Workplace Dynamics Meet Therapy
Most of us carry the very same blind spots, limiting beliefs, and relational habits to work as those we demonstrate in our personal relationships. And, for better and worse, those patterns impact the people around us – our employees, our colleagues, and our business partners. Or as the host of the podcast How’s Work? likes […]
ON MY MIND: The Power of the Pause
When I was 16 years old a neighbor took me fly fishing. When we got to the river bank the first thing he explained was this: “These rocks are slippery. So, if you lose your balance and fall into the river, don’t fight it. There’s no use fighting with gravity or the river’s current. So, […]
ON MY MIND: Distributed Teams (Part 2) – What About Culture?
Even before so many of us started working from home, companies were already mastering the art of distributed teams. Distributed teams are made up of team members working from different locations. Most commonly, distributed team members work in different cities and countries around the world. Still, with the abrupt pivot to remote work, many leaders […]
ON MY MIND: Good Work is Not the Same as Hard Work
Ease (noun): The absence of difficulty or effort; simplicity. One day, in later life, I found myself on the acupuncture table exhausted from a thrown out back. As I lay there, I worried about all of the productive work time I was losing. Imetai, my acupuncturist must have sensed my escalating heart rate. He knew […]
ON MY MIND: Six Shifts for High-Stakes Conversations Shift 6, From Being Right to Being Kind
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” -Abraham Joshua Heschel In this series I’m sharing the Six Shifts leaders can make in order to be more successful in having a high-stakes conversation. Shift 6 involves shifting from being right to being kind. Here’s what I […]