Are we losing the ability to listen? I mean to truly listen to understand someone else – to understand what they mean, what they need, and why. More and more as I’m working with leaders and teams, I find that the root cause of many problems, stressors, and failures is a lack of communication. And I mean real communication. You can have weekly staff meetings or...
Read More
High school hockey is a big deal in MN. I hadn’t tuned into a boy’s high school hockey tournament before, but given all the attention it receives, I thought I’d give it a try. I was surprised by what I saw. Sure, the skill of the players was impressive, but the strength of the teams was remarkable. Think about the pressure these young adults were under. They were...
Read More
During a recent conversation with a leader in a large organization, I asked, “Why do you what you do?” Perhaps because she was programmed, like many of us are, to respond to the question, “What do you do?”, I received a description of the very technical aspects of her job. I asked my question again – emphasizing the “why” part – and she thought for a minute and...
Read More
Empathy. It is a little word that has a lot of power. And in the wake of all the tragedies our country is dealing with, we are reminded of its power. Some people react to tragedy by lashing out, others by taking to social media to use the situation as proof of their opinions, and still others by withdrawing or ignoring the situation. Those who are most...
Read More
Given the unique generational make-up of our current workforce, workshops and trainings on generational awareness are pretty common. Unfortunately, what’s also common in those workshops are biases, stereotypes, and – however unintentional – discrimination. When we reduce the generational discussion to, “Millennials are like this, Gen Xers are like...
Read More
