June 14, 2021
“For me, my role is about unleashing what people already have inside them that are maybe suppressed in most work environment.” Tony Hseih, former Zappos CEO Is the “modern” workplace designed for people? Are the systems created for work designed to maximize productivity and profit or human well-being or is that question still a “radical” one? Who factors in […]
May 9, 2021
There’s an emotion that can make big changes in your life. It’s the emotion that many people I work with identify as desirable – in themselves – and in others. This emotion doesn’t have the transcendent quality of awe and wonder – it works more quietly to soothe your anxiety and help you to see yourself and your surroundings with […]
March 13, 2021
“Anger can be a wonderful wake up call to help you to understand what you need and what you value.” Thich Nhat Hahn For seven years I regularly facilitated seminars on conflict resolution. Most of the group participants wanted answers to problems they saw as the source of their conflict. Usually this had to do with fixing the behavior of another person. […]
February 28, 2021
Somewhere along the line I absorbed the nearly universal belief that hard work is a defining value of a person’s worth. Intellectually, I don’t buy into this meme – but emotionally I can feel its pull and weight for every hour “wasted” on “non-productive” work. Although the nature of work has changed dramatically since I was a child, the thinking […]
February 19, 2021
Succesful collaboration is built on a high level of emotional literacy. Without the capacity to generate and sustain certain feelings, our ability to collaborate with others is not possible. By the time we reach adulthood and enter the workplace, our emotional repertoire has become habituated. Emotional habits are then fueled by our thinking process which is often fixed into patterns. […]
February 5, 2021
Since Part 1 of this article was published it has consistently remained in the blog’s top 10. While I am a very informal student of the science, what I’ve learned has reshaped the way I approach my work. I continue to hope that eventually, this slowly, but surely, organizational leaders will come to realize that many of the beliefs, practices […]
January 27, 2021
The scene – the window from my midtown Manhattan hotel facing an office building. The time – 6 am – the usual time I wake up when working in New York City (unless I can help it!) Years ago, when I started staying at this hotel, the offices were mostly dark at 6 am. But in recent years, more lights in more windows […]
January 7, 2021
“Hardwired to connect with each other, we do so through emotions. Our brains, bodies and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them. Emotions are at the nexus of thought and action, of self and other, of person and environment.” Diana Fosha, Daniel Siegel & Marion Solomon, The Healing Power of Emotions Driven by major advances in neuroscience in […]