A different type of resolution: What is your “mission-critical” statement?
The tradition of making resolutions goes back to Babylonian times, and research on why we make New Year’s resolutions suggests that using temporal landmarks, dates of significance that provide a frame for a new beginning, are helpful in physiologically providing us with a sense of renewal. As we roll into a new year, many of […]
Managing emotions in the workplace.
Throughout my professional career, I have never seen or taken a managerial course about managing my emotions or the emotions of others in the workplace. Yet, during the course of my career, I have found that emotions are at the root of most of the behavior I have had to navigate. For many of us, […]
The art and science of asking questions.
As a child, I asked a lot of questions, and many times, my mother would recite the proverb, “curiosity killed the cat,” then, with a big smile, would state, “but satisfaction brought it back.” She always had great patience with all my questions and never tired of my curious mind. Asking questions has always been […]
Our words matter.
Many of us struggle with language and the use or perceived misuse of words. In recent years, our word choices in certain areas have come to communicate much more than the plain meaning of a word. Words like diversity, privilege, and ally have taken on meanings based on the cultural and social context of the […]
Out of office???
As managers and leaders, many of our employees look to us to either signal or give explicit permission to take time away from work. Therefore, it is essential to foster a culture where stepping away undisturbed to recharge is okay and encouraged. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report states that employee stress is […]
How to be a guppy again.
For any profession, there are different levels of mastery. The conscious competence learning model suggests four levels of learning, from incompetence to competence. The four levels follow with my fish analogies in parenthesis. They are unconscious incompetence (guppy), conscious incompetence (minnow), conscious competence (shark), and unconscious competence (orca). Throughout our careers, we become different types […]
360 feedback and influence.
Receiving feedback from direct reports, peers, and managers can be challenging to digest. My mindset in these moments is that there is a grain of truth in almost every piece of feedback I receive because, for the person giving the feedback, this is how they perceive me. However, this does not always lessen the sting […]
The Last 30 Days.
Barring exigent circumstances, how you resign from your job and depart from an organization matters. A lot has been written about the first 90 days of a job but not very much about the last 30 days of a job. A 2021 Gallop analysis found that 48% of the working population is actively searching or […]
Employee fear: anxiety and phobias.
As a manager, how do you know if you have an employee suffering from anxiety in the workplace? Before digging into anxiety, it helps to understand fear. Fear is a natural emotion that all of us experience as humans. When we think about the word fear, we usually think about it in primal terms, an […]
Working long hours? Rx: You need a hobby.
Have you noticed that your work sometimes feels as if it expands or contracts to whatever period of time you set aside for it? This phenomenon is known as Parkinson’s Law which states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” When I was a young child, I remember having […]
The penalty box.
Have you ever felt as if you have been placed in the “penalty box” by your manager? Everyone has at one time or another. But why is that? There can be many reasons. Sometimes we misinterpret what a manager or leader says; at other times, we fill in the gaps with our own narrative, and […]
Balance is aspirational; diversification is life.
In my study, a.k.a. home office, I have a wooden plaque on my windowsill that reads, “She believed she could, so she did.” It is a very empowering quote that fills me with fuel and reminds me that I have great strength within and can take on any obstacle if I apply my knowledge, skills, […]
Going dark, what it means to me and why I do it.
Why do we feel stressed when we think about taking time off from work? What if I told you that not taking a vacation could be detrimental to your career. Did you know that of those employees in the United States who receive paid vacation time, approximately 55% are not using all of their paid […]
Time Management – The dark side of the moon.
Yes, that is a Pink Floyd reference; I could not resist the 80’s. People tend to use the phrase “dark side of the moon” to mean something unknown or mysterious. That is how elusive time can be, at least in my experience. Have you heard the saying, “Work expands so as to fill the time […]
A nod to the Oscars: “King Richard,” lessons about life and leadership.
This year there are ten movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. In our ongoing journey exploring lessons about life and leadership, I thought it would be fun to take a closer look at one of these contenders and see what gems it gives us. My Oscar pick goes to King Richard, a biographical […]
