#Business

Aug 8

Defining Moments - Short, Memorable, and Meaningful Experiences

“Our lives are measured in moments, and defining moments are the ones that endure in our memories.” -Chip Heath & Dan Heath In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath talk about defining moments. A defining moment is a short experience that is both meaningful and memorable. We tend to remember flagship moments: the peaks, the pits, and the transitions. Peaks: Moments that make us feel engaged, joyful, amazed, motivated. Pits: Negative defining moments—moments of hardship or

Jul 1

Values-Based Leadership

Professor Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr. of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management says a values-based leader aims to motivate and inspire others to pursue the greater good – “the positive change that can be effected within a team, department, division, or organization, or even on a global level” (Kraemer, 2011a, p. 3). In a Forbes article, professor Kraemer states, “becoming the best kind of leader isn’t about emulating a role model or a historic figure. Rather

Jun 2

How Steve Jobs Reframed The Competition To Rally The Troops

Photo: Screenshots of Apple 1984 Super Bowl TV Commercial I have been in companies that operated with an extremely competitive culture and mindset and worked alongside people who were hypercompetitive. In one instance, it became so competitive that a company was forced to cancel a fundraising event because employees had taken things too far the prior year. One of the techniques I’ve discovered to redirect and channel hypercompetitive employees’ energy is to get them to work T

May 3

Why the Ability to Rethink & Unlearn Is So Important

A terrific book I finished last year (in 2021) is Think Again by Adam Grant. Grant says the ability to rethink (or think again) and unlearn habits is as important as the ability to think and learn. We should spend as much time rethinking our problems and our assumptions as we do thinking about them. Successful people adopt a mental flexibility that allows them to be skilled rethinkers. Rethinkers embrace being wrong and failing, while also updating their views. Here’s a great

Mar 24

Employee Mental Health and the Return to In-Person Workplaces

I was contacted by a communications specialist for my thoughts regarding people who might be experiencing anxiety about having to go back to in-person workplaces. I am reposting my responses below. Question: How do you think the mental health of individuals may have changed in two years of working from home? Answer: There’s no question that the mental health of employees has changed as a result of working remotely, due to the COVID pandemic. Being isolated and working in isol

Feb 8

Exploring Mindfulness, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and The MBSR Online Course

To ensure that I don’t overwhelm the reader, I have divided the article into SECTIONS: In SECTION 1, I’ll talk about the concept, origin, and practice called mindfulness. In SECTION 2, I’ll cover Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), explaining what it is and why there are health and research merits. In SECTION 3, I’ll outline what’s in an MBSR program/course, including the formal meditation practices. In SECTION 4, I’ll share my thoughts about taking The MBSR Online Cou

Dec 1, 2021

Book Review – LEAD NOW!: A Personal Leadership Coaching Guide for Results-Driven Leaders (2nd ed.)

“Leadership is a future-oriented ability to establish direction, align people, and help others to work together. We believe a leader is one who develops a vision of the future, prepares the strategies for achieving it, and supports the execution of that vision” (Stewart & Stewart, 2021, p. 6). “Our motivation in developing the LEAD NOW! concept was to produce a model that is practical, useful, easy to teach, easy to understand, and that smacks of common sense. The LEAD NOW! L

Oct 11, 2021

How to be a Good Internal Consultant

As an internal consultant and a member of an internal consulting team (although “internal consultant” or “internal consulting” is not in our “official” job titles), my colleagues and I are often called on to lead, support, and offer coaching, consultation, or facilitation services on wide-ranging areas, projects, and initiatives including culture, change management, conflict management, leadership development, organizational development, learning & development, onboarding, an

Aug 18, 2021

Book Review — Influence and Impact: Discover and Excel at What Your Organization Needs From You The

“What we have found, again and again, is that people tend to underperform because they do what is comfortable, what is familiar, or what they desire, rather than what is most important to the organization. The majority of people we have coached believed they were doing the right things, but they did not understand the organization’s top priorities.” -Bill Berman & George Bradt (Influence and Impact, p. 11) What Influence and Impact by Bill Berman and George Bradt Is About Inf

Jun 1, 2021

Book Summary & Review — Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Unc

According to Adrian Gostick, one of the main reasons for writing the book had to do with his (now) 25-year-old son, Anthony (Tony) Gostick, who had been struggling with anxiety since high school and had always wanted his dad to write about this topic. Tony soon realized that he wasn’t alone and that many of his peers and even his managers were also feeling anxiety. As Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, his friend and coauthor, traveled the world talking and working with organi

Feb 22, 2021

How to Give Direct and Clear Feedback

From front-line leaders all the way up to C-suite leaders, I have seen, time and time again, how managers have made a mess in delivering feedback to their employees. In this article, I will: Clarify the difference between coaching and feedback; Highlight and explain the Situation Behavior Impact Model (SBI); Share Brené Brown’s “Engaged Feedback Checklist”; and Wrap up with Dianna Booher’s five feedback tips. Many managers misunderstand feedback, with most calling it “coachin

Nov 5, 2020

Can video conferencing apps mimic or replace human-to-human connection?

I was contacted by a journalist writing a story about workplace communication, why human beings need human-to-human connection in the office, and whether technology can mimic or replace face-to-face human-to-human connection. She wanted to know if video teleconferencing apps and technologies are getting better at mimicking or even replacing face-to-face human-to-human connection. I am reposting my responses below. 1. Are video teleconferencing apps and technologies capable of

Oct 5, 2020

Blocked Personal Learners Don’t See Value in Self-Development

“Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.” ―John C. Maxwell Blocked Personal Learner According to Barnfield and Lombardo (2014), a person is a “blocked personal learner” if he or she: Is closed to learning new personal, interpersonal, managerial, and leadership skills, approaches, and tactics. Prefers staying the same, even when

Sep 1, 2020

Three Leadership Derailing Behaviors

Leaders exhibit common bad habits and researchers have pinpointed specific behaviors that can derail a person’s career (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2009). For two great coaching and development guides, consult FYI: For Your Improvement: A Development and Coaching Guide (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2009) and Compass: Your Guide for Leadership Development and Coaching (Scisco, Biech, & Hallenbeck, 2017). Lombardo and Eichinger (2009) define derailing behaviors as negative characteristics o

Aug 3, 2020

To Engage and Retain Employees Provide a “Mini” Job Rotation During Employee Orientation

Have you noticed that, in many companies, employees often have no clue what many of the other employees in other functions do to support the overall organization? When you look at how companies typically onboard new employees and the lack of follow-up employee development training, it’s not at all surprising that so many employees struggle with not fully understanding what their colleagues do and how their companies operate. As a result, these employees, their teams, and lead

Jul 1, 2020

What You Should Know About Leadership Development Training

I’ve spent more than a decade working in three related and intersecting fields: Training, Learning & Development, and Leadership Development. One can certainly make a case that these all fall under Talent Development. In my current role, I am a Leadership Development Manager & Advisor. I partner with senior leaders and top decision-makers on ways to improve human behaviors in the workplace and on how to make people and organizations more effective (e.g., leadership developmen

May 11, 2020

3 Reasons Physical Offices & Face-to-Face Meetings Are Not Going Away

The traditional, physical office is not going away any time soon despite advances in technology allowing people to work remotely, either at a home office, coworking space, virtual office, or another remote location (such as a coffee shop, library, or bookstore). Similarly, face-to-face meetings will not disappear, even though we can use email, phone, text, or virtual conference calls to conduct business meetings. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic reignited the debate about

Apr 1, 2020

How to Work Remotely During COVID-19 and Maintain Your Emotional Health

I have been asked about tips and strategies to help individuals be effective in working remotely during this COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Here are my thoughts. Tips for Effectively Working Remotely: 1. Technology & Tools: Make sure you have the technology, equipments, and softwares to continue to be productive and get your work done. Practice and become comfortable with the various tools that your team and/or company requires you to use. For instance, for videoconferencin

Jan 6, 2020

Steve Jobs Had Moderately Low Emotional Intelligence

I thought this might be an interesting case study. I’ve come across many articles where writers (both lay and scholars) have stated that they believe Steve Jobs had high emotional intelligence (EQ). Let’s start by defining emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence is the “ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others” (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Cherkasskiy, 2011, p.

Dec 16, 2019

Book Review – An Introduction to Management Consultancy

An Introduction to Management Consultancy by Marc Baaij is a book that really pulls back the curtains and reveals the inner workings of management consultancies. I have never seen a book about management consulting like this before. I actually received a print copy of An Introduction to Management Consultancy to review in late summer 2018 but wasn’t able to find time to do a proper book review so I kept delaying it. What’s so valuable about this textbook is that its author, P