Leading Change. Changing Leadership.
We have a new site, a new client portal, and a new way of organizing our tools to help you. Instead of “discover, align, develop” we now think about our work as leading change and changing leadership. This isn’t to say we’ll recommend you boot your boss! We help create intentional change, and have the tools to help each employee determine which changes should happen, as well as in which ways. Get to know our work, and meet our team! We look forward to connecting with you.
read moreLosing Listening
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 monthly status updates or daily check-ins, but if the people involved in those meetings are only listening to reply (which is listening until they hear something to disagree with or...
read moreHockey Highlights
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 playing in a huge arena with local and sometimes national news coverage, and to crowds of close to 22,000 people – larger than the attendance at many NHL games! Despite all that...
read moreConnect To Your “Why”
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 said, “I have no idea anymore.” How many of us would have that same answer? It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and lose sight of our priorities and our values. This...
read moreEngaging Empathy
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 effective during times of tragedy are those who listen. They respond with empathy, rather than reacting in anger. They are careful to focus first on the people – all people – who have...
read moreChanging the Generational Conversation
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 this, and Boomers are like that”, we are grossly stereotyping those groups who are often more similar than they are different. Should we talk about how to manage...
read moreRegroup and Refocus
Do you ever have times when you get distracted, lose sight of your priorities, or just become overwhelmed by everything you have to do? Of course you do. We all do. That’s the reality of life in the modern workplace. Competing priorities, doing more with less, rapid changes, and the ultimate – always putting other people’s needs first. While those challenges may be real and relevant, we can’t just throw up our hands and say, “Oh well. Maybe some day I can get to the really important stuff.” That’s kind of...
read moreLayover Leadership
Sleeping on the floor of an airport may not seem like an opportunity to practice leadership, but it was. It was a long week, late at night, and we were ready to get home. And though the second leg of our flight was delayed, we finally boarded and pulled away from the gate. Minutes later, plans changed. Not our plans to get home, but the pilots’ plans to avoid working over their 9-hour limit. Had we proceeded down the runway, we would have been home in a matter of hours and happy to sleep in our own beds. But those hours would have caused the...
read moreTesting Teamwork
It was 95 degrees with 80% humidity and I was out for a run on the wooded trail near my home. Why I was out for a run in that weather you ask? I was challenging myself to stay committed to a goal; to a schedule. I was expecting to feel a sense of accomplishment; I wasn’t expecting to be inspired. As I approached the bottom of the large hill that’s at the end of my run, I saw the first couple of girls running towards me…and they kept coming! It was our local high school cross-country team out for a training run. They weren’t just out for a jog...
read moreLeading Change. Changing Leadership.
I came across a great article from Chief Learning Officer (CLO), titled “How Do You Get Leaders to Change?” In this article, the author outlines the usual steps that are prescribed for getting leaders to change, and proposes some additional steps/efforts to increase the likelihood of success in the change effort. We at Lumin are currently working with the wonderful Department Heads, Managers, and Supervisors (over 120 of them) of a County in Wisconsin to help them manage both organizational and individual changes...
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