October 7, 2018
Despite the worn-out demands that the workplace is no place for “”personal feelings,” people bring all of their unresolved emotional baggage to work – and there is little we can do about that. Outmoded collective beliefs that endure like – work life and personal life should be separate – speak to a lack of knowledge about the new science of emotions […]
December 12, 2017
Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash The Intentional Workplace blog began with this post. What could be more basic than to understand the nature of communication? But more important, how we communicate and why. The message was simple but seems to grow more important every day – everything comes down to how we communicate. All the things that we want and need start […]
December 6, 2017
“When patterns are broken new worlds emerge” Tuli Kuperberg What does a “who dunnit” in a work team have to do with a global conflict, or for that matter, any conflict? Looking at any major conflict one easily sees that they are usually convoluted, long-standing and seemingly intractable. Too often, most attempts at dealing with conflict boil down to these “strategies” […]
December 1, 2016
“People who are in touch with their needs do not make good slaves.” Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D Needs are basic to life. Everything we feel and do is in service to our needs. In the moment to moment biological imperative to meet our needs we make choices – thousands of choices. Every choice we make is an attempt to satisfy […]
September 8, 2016
Since the term Emotional Intelligence (EI) was popularized in the mid -1990’s by former New York Times science writer, Daniel Goleman, work on EI has found its way into mainstream business. Goleman’s first book, Emotional Intelligence, was based on the work of university researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey, who were trying to scientifically measure the difference in people’s emotional abilities. At the […]
June 17, 2016
Ask me what is most important. And I will reply, It is people, It is people, It is people Maori Proverb You read a lot these days about the need for new workplace models. There is a growing consensus that decades of rigid, bottom line, often authoritarian management structures kill the culture necessary for real collaborative relationships. The old models […]
June 11, 2016
How we respond to others is largely a function of habit. Many small, repetitive, automatic responses that grow over a long period of time form habits. Mostly, these reactions are outside of our conscious awareness. They’re built on foundations formed by our beliefs, and in most cases, they stayed fixed, usually reinforcing old beliefs and naturally – old habits. Charles […]
November 17, 2015
We’re watching it happen before our very eyes. Much of the world is experiencing profound collective introspection. For some it’s a slow bubbling – for others; a fast boil. Our beliefs, practices, institutions and our leaders – especially our leaders, are undergoing intense scrutiny and criticism. The effects are often disorienting and feel chaotic. Ever since 1939, when psychologist Kurt […]
October 20, 2015
“The fantasy about organizational life is that people will behave in logical, unemotional and well-organized ways. It’s as though the boxes on the organizational charts are designed to keep the messiness of reality, people and emotions away from work.” Dan Oestrich and Kathleen Ryan, co-authors, Driving Fear from The Workplace. How is it that with so-called flattened hierarchies, employee engagement […]