Blog
It’s Business… And It Better Be Personal
Times are changing. If you are reading this, you probably sense it. And business has to change, we need to “Switch and Shift.” To effectively lead, engage and create loyalty we have to connect with employees as… people. Knowing how and where to start, however, can seem daunting for an organization. In Shawn Murphy’s recent blog post, I mentioned findings from a study conducted by Maritz Motivation Solutions to help companies better understand employees. We found valuable insights on what is meaningful and motivating to employees. A key...
read moreCan Work Be Enjoyable?
Have you ever noticed how when someone tells us they’ve been really busy with work, we automatically interpret this as being a bad thing? Certainly, no one associates having a lot of work to do with sunshine, love, happiness or any other positive experience. In many ways, this is a natural product of both our schooling and work experiences, where we’re not guided and supported to use our genius, creativity, and talents in order to do the work we should do. Rather, what is the more common experience is being funnelled through a...
read moreMaster the Fine Art of Managing Up
Whether you work in a startup or are working your way up the corporate ladder, to succeed you’ll have to learn the art of managing up. During a performance review early in my career, my manager told me I was “good at managing up”… and I had no idea what he was talking about. At the time, I was still in school and eager. And instead of asking what he meant, I said “thank you” and asked what I could do to improve my skills. I had no idea I’d stumbled on the top skill that would open doors of opportunity. What Does Managing Up Mean? Managing up...
read moreFrom Now To How: Social, Virtual and Cross Generational Leadership
You can criticize, condemn and complain or imagine, inspire and innovate. Your choice will determine your destiny. – Deepak Chopra The need to go from NOW to HOW is critical. Leadership starts with our ability to imagine, inspire, innovate and communicate forward. Hope lies in not simply playing to strengths, but to seizing every challenge, change, stressor and failure as an opportunity to grow, evolve and expand the power of our minds, the strength of our brains and the capacity of our hearts. Courage lies in our ability develop a...
read moreFrom Boomer to Gen Y Leaders: New Emperors Need Newer Clothes
In the 1990s, we Boomers were fretting over a previous economic downturn and whether or not the Internet was a passing fad (another golden age of myopia). At that time, management thinker, Charles Handy, told a memorable story as an analogy for change in his book ‘The Age of Unreason’. A tribe of South American Indians would place a frog in a pan of cold water and then heat it to boiling point (cheap midweek dinner). The frog would adapt its body temperature to the rising heat and be unaware of its fate until too late. However, Handy reported...
read moreOrganizational Leadership and a Better Society
I think it’s a safe assumption, unless you’re a narcissistic sociopath, that people want a better society and want to contribute to that goal in some fashion. There is plenty of frustration and uncertainty to go around in nearly every country. Social tensions permeate every aspect of our world and it is in the best interest of companies to make sure they are proactive about mitigating this as much as possible. Short of launching some involved CSR campaign to support existing social programs aimed at providing a pleasant remedy to societal...
read moreTime to Embrace the Millennial Overachiever
“What comes to mind when you hear the phrase ‘Millennial overachiever’?”, I asked my friends. One friend replied, “You, Jenny. You’re an overachiever.” According to the loose stereotype, the “Millennial overachiever” is someone who tries always to be a superstar at work, wants to do more in a day than most do in a week, and doesn’t care who they pass in the process. Ouch. Since I was 16, my peers made fun of me for being an “overachiever.” I was Co-Editor-in-Chief of my high school newspaper and worked 20-30 hours/week at Starbucks. Then, I...
read moreDear Enterprise Leaders, You’re Screwed. Here’s Why.
Dear Enterprise Leader, I’ve got some terrible news for you. Your best talent isn’t good enough to compete. Better talent is at work right across town, in an over-crowded garage at the house of some tiny firm’s founder. Unlike your mammoth offices, this garage is full of energy, excitement, and – here’s the worst part for you – it’s full of absolute brilliance, the type of brilliance your own company was attracting just a few years ago, at the depth of the recession. Buddy, you’re screwed. Chances are, it’s all over but the crying. Your...
read moreLeading Gen Y: The Importance of Importance
As someone who is not motivated by a pay-check, I struggled when I first entered the work world. Well, not at first. First, I interned for a start-up and I thrived in that environment. It was a lean, busy, fast-paced environment where all the work being performed by each individual was absolutely necessary. Then I spent some time in large public and private organizations where many of my tasks appeared to be irrelevant. I wrote reports no one ever read, and worked on processes that never really had a purpose. I started to think there was...
read moreWhy Leading the Herd Diminishes Effectiveness
As a leader you’ve likely noticed how people tend to fall in with the opinions of the herd. Or many herds? That’s not always good to see. It happens because our unconscious mind rewards us with a pleasure response every time we side with the herd. Our mind also sends an error message, or a threat warning, whenever we begin to stray from the group. No wonder we seem to instinctively conform to group opinion! That surely explains a lot, doesn’t it? Our unconscious mind rewards us with a pleasure response every time we side with the herd This...
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