User manuals should evolve as you learn and grow. They're meant to facilitate understanding and communication, not create rigid rules or expectations.In my years of coaching senior leaders through transitions and transformations, I've noticed a common challenge: teams...
Leadership Development
What We Mean By Trust—And How Leaders Can Grow It
Most of us think of trust as a single factor: you either have it or you don’t. But that way of thinking is too simplistic. In reality, we trust the people in our lives in different ways and for different purposes. “I’ll take a look at that tomorrow,” a former...
The Gift of Feedback: A Leader’s Perspective on Giving and Receiving
This holiday season, I invite you to consider feedback as one of the most valuable gifts we can offer as leaders. As the year draws to a close and the holiday season approaches, many of us find ourselves reflecting on the gifts we give and receive. In my role as a...
How to Onboard Your New Boss
Rather than a one-sided interviewing dynamic, working relationships could start with an open exchange of perspectives and personalities. We've all been there—that nagging feeling of uncertainty when starting to work with a new boss. Will we click? What are their...
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Team Development
Getting Past the Drama at Work
Resolving conflict at work means you have to address the task and relationship challenges honestly and directly, with thoughtful language, curiosity, and a spirit of compromise. But none of that can happen if you don’t let go of the drama. Kayla and Will work...
SuperCharge Your Team’s Growth with these Four Reflection Questions
Here’s the simple but powerful 4-question framework to reflect on difficult situations with a new lens. In a recent coaching conversation, one of my clients shared her frustration with a team member who failed to complete a critical project task and then subsequently...
The Power of WE
As leaders, we create the WE for our teams, building a safe space, a sense of belonging and a group of peers with whom we will achieve great things. A few years ago, my oldest child shared that they were transitioning and would prefer to use a new name and new...
Undertaking an Active Listening Tour to Help Create a High-Performing Team
When your listening is authentic and active, it can have a powerful impact on performance. Can you recall a time in your life when you were asked for your opinion on a matter, and it was quite apparent that the person asking really didn’t have any interest in what you...
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Organizational Strategy
Budget Season is upon us. Here’s how to make planning less scary.
This approach will boost the amount of collaboration, support, and buy-in that will benefit you not just during the remainder of the budgeting process, but also throughout the year as you execute the plan. Everyone’s favorite season is finally here and I hope you are...
Balancing Ambitious Strategy with COVID Burnout
If you are anything like the hundreds of executives we have worked with, you are struggling to balance your long-term ambitions with the overwhelming amount of tasks associated with delivering today. It was a challenge even before you began the latest COVID adventure...
Growing Your Business During Times Of Change
Whether an attempt to shift company culture, an effort to re-brand, or simply a change in processes, many company-wide change efforts are met with apathy or resistance. When employees are hesitant to accept new ways of working, feel uninvolved, or lack a sense of...
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Workplace Culture
Two-thirds of US Workers Say They’ve Experienced Incivility on the Job— Here’s How to Check Yourself
"A leader’s job is to remove the obstacles to productive work—that includes rooting out incivility and replacing it with a culture of generous and supportive communication." New research from SHRM revealed that two-thirds of the 1000 US workers surveyed have...
“What Have You Done For Me Lately?” Confessions From a Non-Profit Board Member
I recently found myself hesitating when a community organization I'm involved with asked for my support as a volunteer board member. I recently found myself hesitating when a community organization I'm involved with asked for my support as a volunteer board member....
What Your Team Needs More This Year Than Ever Before
"I’ve consulted in organizations around the world for nearly two decades now, but I’ve never seen the need for care or support be as pronounced as it is now." The CEO who appeared on my Zoom screen looked exhausted. We were supposed to be coordinating on an executive...
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Career Development
Do this at Your Next Performance Review
When it’s time for your annual review, you can either be a passenger or a driver. The key to getting what you need from your performance review is asking the right questions. One of my coaching clients, Eddie*, was preparing for his annual performance review. He...
Classroom Calling: How to Transform Your Professional Expertise into a Teaching Position
If you’ve ever considered teaching in higher education, either part-time or full-time, here is everything you need to know to make the transition from professional life to academia. “I’m not even sure I was an official employee of the university for my first night of...
Advanced Networking Practices for Upgrading Your Job Search
These upgrades deliver newfound reach and turn the tables for you in a positive way. These practices also reward you with an alternative currency – confidence. A May 30th Wall Street Journal article proclaimed, “Landing a Job is All About Who You Know (Again),” and...
The Complete Guide to Job Search Networking
Whether you’re in transition or looking to leap into a larger role, the secret to finding the right opportunity lies less with an “optimized resume” and more with an expanded network. Whether you’re in transition or looking to leap into a larger role, the secret to...
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Personal Growth
Be Wrong with Confidence: Three Mindset Shifts to Turn Uncertainty into Advantage
When we approach scenario planning, we often focus on the mechanics—the frameworks, the analysis, the documentation. But what if the most powerful aspect isn't the process itself, but the mindset it cultivates?Most organizations engage in some form of scenario...
Gratitude is the Secret to “Likability”
Gratitude turns your focus from inward to outward, from reactive to proactive, from passive to active. At dinner recently, a friend mentioned that she would have had no career at all if “likability” weren’t her superpower. She humbly claimed to have almost no other...
Leveraging Positive Visualization for High Performance
Instead of coming at a challenge from a place of fear or with a deficit/scarcity mindset, we can truly view it as an opportunity and have the confidence that will help create the future we really want to realize. In a recent executive coaching session with one of my...
How Do You Make an Agonizing Decision?
In my professional and personal life, I’ve adopted a framework for facing emotionally charged decisions. The next time you have a challenging decision to make, here are five things you can do to work through the choice. Recently my wife, Stacey, and I had to make an...
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Communication Skills
Plan for High Impact Conversations in the New Year
As you set your sights on next year, now is the time to plan for high impact conversations you should target in the coming months. As a new calendar year approaches, many of us are planning, have a plan, or plan to make a plan for our professional lives. Let me add...
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