The Costs of Continuous Partial Attention
As Americans, we aren’t big on reflection. Mulling over the impacts of our often impetuous and impulsive decisions isn’t our thing. We see ourselves as risk-takers, pioneers, self-made individualists embracing the New, the Now, the Loud, the Louder. We’re an ADHD culture, we are most likely hopeless multi-taskers, and we might be caught in the throes […]
Voice Fixes Hillary Needs NOW!
Voice and the way we use it matters. Hillary’s finding this out the hard way. She’s one of the most qualified Presidential candidates in the history of our country, but we can’t stand listening to her voice. Five voice strategies she can use now…. “There were many, many women in this convention who spoke far more memorably […]
Team Climate Change: 1 Company Culture Tool Gets U Ready 4 the Heat!
The everyday actions your company culture uses to reinforce underlying values are worth your attention. Does your company have this essential culture tool to cope with change? Check out these situations…. Casey + Co. is a small but thriving start-up with a great production track record and their best quarter ever. The C+C staff is […]
Verbal Interruptions: Office No-No? Maybe not…
I’m a interrupter. Guilty as charged. I have been working to correct that obnoxious practice of verbal interruptions for some time, but I have yet to be fully reformed. I know cutting someone off mid-sentence is irritating. I know that my diving headlong into my own point of view on a topic is really rude. […]
Improv in the Workplace…..NOT what you think!
What are your associations with the word Improvisation? Who’s Line is it Anyway? The Groundlings? Those Improv Everywhere videos on YouTube? Whatever the word brings to mind, it probably involves entertainment right? It’s fun to watch people up there leaping into space with no net! My connection with improvisation is a bit different – I’m […]
Roll Your Eyes, but it’s “The Way We Do Things Around Here”!
I’m fascinated with rituals, defined here as the actions we do over and over to reinforce meaning. Some workplace rituals are pretty straightforward: inductions, celebrations, retirements are only a few of the more familiar. (Although, in trying to find a graphic for this post – a search under “workplace rituals” offered all these photos of […]
Your #1 Weapon Against Blind Stupidity…..
Curiosity is the opposite of fear. You hear that Love is the opposite – well ok, but in actual experience, love is too big a stretch. All kinds of people can claim they “love” the disabled or Muslims or old hippies, but in that context, the L word is almost meaningless. Genuine curiosity on the […]
Big Mouth? Big Buck$! You Might Want to Rethink that Clever Putdown…
One of the benefits of being self-employed is the variety of workplace cultures I get to experience. Being a bit of an outlier in a company lends some perspective on best and worst practices, and the curious chemistry within particular organizations. I’d like to profile two recent cultures I’ve worked within as a study in […]
Ditch the New Year’s Resolutions. Do This Instead.
We’re two weeks into January and I’m already looking for ways to get out of my New Year’s resolutions. I mean really, how pathetic is THAT? But a friend of mine, Deb Nelson, hooked me up with an alternative: Choose 3 words to frame what you would like to accomplish in 2016. She got the idea […]
Are you a Head? a Heart? or Hands? How We Listen Determines What We Decide……
There’s plenty out there on how to deliver our message for maximum impact – but we are all listeners too. And how we listen and the filters we use in listening can determine much about what we absorb, the nature of our relationships and the actions we ultimately decide to take in our lives and businesses, […]