April 18, 2019

Emotional Mindfulness: What Anger, Vulnerability & Despair Teach Us

Everyone gets caught in a whirlwind of contradictory feelings and wonders – how can so many potent emotions sit side by side within me? It’s easy to get lost in anxiety, sadness or even despair, when times are hard. It’s not uncommon to feel a sense of vulnerability because of the limitations of our power to effect external change. Brene […]
March 1, 2019

What Does Your Work Mean to You?

Every day countless words are dedicated to writing about the economics of work.  The conversation about the future of work is a perennial “hot topic.”  But when it comes to exploring the meaning of work, the search engine slows down.  It’s a challenging task because what we call work has changed dramatically in the last generation. Just as when the […]
January 1, 2019

The Ultimate Diet – The 7 Day Mental Cleanse

It’s always diet season, isn’t it? Seems a day does not go by without another article on dieting. But, what about your mind?  Are you willing to try out a really challenging but ultimately very rewarding new kind of diet?  Then the 7 Day Mental Cleanse is for you. If you believe, as I do, that thought is the real causative […]
October 14, 2018

FEAR in the Workplace

“Fear is an aggressive predator of joy and creativity in the workplace.” Terence Deal & M.K. Key The price tag on fear is high – for business and our own well-being. Emotional contagion is real. Fear is catchy. Old fears get easily activated. The way we talk to ourselves is a critically important factor in how we activate our fears. External […]
October 7, 2018

Why is Conflict So Hard? How to Manage it More Productively

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 […]
June 11, 2018

Workplace Relationships – We Have to Care

“The question in an imperfect competitive reality is: how do we move forward together?              Kevin Roberts, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi  It’s not rare for us to hear some people we work admit – I just don’t care about some of the people I work with. Thankfully, these people are not the norm. Without question, the endless […]
December 12, 2017

Communicating Intentionally ~ the Basics

  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 3, 2015

What Does it Mean to Live in the Age of Empathy?

If we are living in a so-called Age of Empathy – what does that mean? What does it mean for an individual, a co-worker, an employer, a neighbor, a city or a world society to live with empathy in the face of such harsh daily realities?  What will we do differently in our personal and social lives? What kind of […]
October 11, 2015

There is Nothing Soft about "Soft Skills"

Ever since I began to work in the business world, the term “soft skills” always felt off to me. The more I come to appreciate the complexity of human dynamics, the more off it feels. In my experience, there is nothing soft or easy about mastering people skills. In fact, when I look around, especially in the workplace, clear and effective […]