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 11, 2019

10 Quotes to Inspire Your Work (and the rest of life)

It’s easy to become cynical in these times – even about our own aspirations and possibilities. It’s more important than ever to understand what we believe and how our actions are aligned with our behavior. Here are ten quotes that are food for thought – opening up the fields of possibility in how you think about your work every day.  […]
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 […]
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 6, 2017

Resolving Conflict: Going Beyond "Who Started It?"

“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” […]
March 11, 2017

Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?  

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver’s haunting question should become a mantra for life in the 21st century. Seemingly inured to stress, too many of us speed through each day without taking the time to stop and ask – what have I traded a day of my life for today? Jumping on the mindfulness bandwagon dozens of articles still ask, “Can […]
January 21, 2017

You are Hard-Wired for Altruism

Through the tragic events and natural disasters of the past decades we’ve seen  extraordinary outpourings of help and compassion for neighbors – and most important, strangers. Tragic events seem to galvanize our empathy and evoke great acts of kindness in response. In the past decade we have also been the beneficiaries of valuable findings from research to better understand the motives […]
December 5, 2016

Empathy Killers

In doing some research on empathy I came across this article and found myself  so “hooked” by it that I sat down to write this piece. Nicholas Kristof’s compelling New York Times article, Where is the Love, discusses the pushback he’s received from many readers on food stamp recipients, prison inmates and the uninsured.  Writing about hungry children, Kristof shares […]
November 21, 2016

Creating a Culture of Gratitude in the Workplace

We seem to get the “gratitude spirit” during the end of year holiday season. We hear the heart-felt stories about kindness and giving start to appear.  Tis’ the season, so to speak.   It’s a time when even the busiest and most cynical among us pause (even if only for a short time) and reflect.   But too often, the feelings of […]