February 4, 2016

Can I Trust You?

Trust is a fragile and complex thing. It’s a dynamic process  made up of our thoughts, beliefs, values, feelings and most important – our actions. It is often indefinable, highly personal and mostly an unconscious process that governs the why and how of what we do. Although trust, at all levels, appears to be at an all time low – […]
January 11, 2016

11 Ways to Be More Mindful in Your Work Relationships

Do you know about the marshmallow test? No, it’s not about seeing how many marshmallows you can toast and eat by the fire. It’s the classic Marshmallow Study conducted in 1968 at Stanford University by clinical psychologist Walter Mischel that became one of the longest running experiments in psychology. The initial study examined 600 children to see how they would […]
December 2, 2015

Every Word Has Power (Watching Your Language Can Change the Way You Feel at Work)

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~George Gordon Byron Words are powerful. What we say reflects what we think.  Our spoken word originates in our thought.  Typically, most people don’t think consciously.   Long established habits that have formed hard wired neural networks […]
October 20, 2015

8 Ways to Decrease Organizational Fear

 “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 […]
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 […]
June 11, 2015

Workplace Relationships – You Have to Care

“The question in an imperfect competitive reality is: how do we move forward together?              Kevin Roberts, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi  This post is written out of concern. I’m alarmed by the amount of people in the workplace who admit (some without a hint of regret) that they just “don’t care” about many of the people they […]
May 13, 2015

Conscious Communication – It’s All About US

Underneath every communication is a feeling. This feeling drives your communication.  How conscious are you of the subtext of your communication and the impact it has on others? Every time we do a seminar or facilitate a meeting, people say they want better communication in the workplace.  What most people are hungry for is communication that is real, honest, clear, concise […]
April 28, 2015

Why Do We Have To “Promote” Kindness at Work?

 “I now realize I have been working with my eyes closed. I appreciate even more a professor with whom I work occasionally: he always makes the point that leaders, managers — everyone in fact — should never underestimate the importance of kindness at work.” Gill Corkindale, Harvard Business Review An article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) by author Gill Corkindale,  “The […]
March 26, 2015

Mindful Work – AM to PM

This article was inspired by the work of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn’s book, Work: How to Find Joy and Meaning Each Hour of the Day.  For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen master, poet, peace and human rights activist was exiled from his homeland of Vietnam in 1966. In the early 60’s […]