No.

“No” is a complete response. I had the great pleasure of spending sometime this week with a friend and colleague, Deborah Siegel, PhD.  While talking with Deborah, she shared something amazing. She said she has a place in her office where she marks down when she says ‘no.’ So why is saying no a bigContinue reading “No.”

Women, The Workplace & Self Esteem – Like Watching A Rerun

My summer reading pile is almost all books about women.  Books about women in the nineteenth century, women and self esteem, women and leadership, women in politics, etc.  All very interesting, all research for articles and a book I’m drafting out.  And while these books are interesting, all too often there is a common threadContinue reading “Women, The Workplace & Self Esteem – Like Watching A Rerun”

What Is It Really Worth? Or, If You Aren’t Contributing Give Up Your Seat At The Table

With stats showing over 75% of the U.S. workforce is unhappy with their job(s) you have to begin to wonder why they stay. Where is the value for them in maintaining the misery, not only for themselves, but most likely, the ripple impacts their family and friends? Money and/or family, is the response I mostContinue reading “What Is It Really Worth? Or, If You Aren’t Contributing Give Up Your Seat At The Table”

What Is Beneath The Surface?

What is beneath the surface of your decisions?  Do you even consider what the motivators might be for deciding and acting the way you do?  While “critical thinking” is a fairly common term and practice, what about “critical awareness”? Critical thinking involves looking into data, etc. when pursuing a decision or outcome.  Critical awareness takesContinue reading “What Is Beneath The Surface?”

The Neuroscience Of Positive Leadership

Research on the neuroscience of positive leadership, to me, seems like the best idea ever!  If you have positive leadership, creating a positive organizational culture, things start to take care of themselves, ROI, productivity fall into place. http://www.unc.edu/peplab/research.html

Public Speaking

Yesterday I held a TEDxWomen event here in IL, on the beautiful North Shore of Lake Michigan, outside of Chicago, in the amazing suburb of Winnetka.  I learned a few extremely valuable lessons in the compact time I had to organize it, raise money for it, pick speakers and implement it all. 1)  It isContinue reading “Public Speaking”

Performance Matching

Performance matching is a common phenomena within the workplace.  It consists of group work and/or area work resulting in a consistent outcome pulled lower by the poorest performer.  What does it look like?  Say two teams are working at opposites sides of the building on the same task.  The groups outcomes will tend to matchContinue reading “Performance Matching”

Avoiding Conflict, The Abilene Paradox

There is a dynamic that seems like a smooth path, but leads to bumpy results – the Abilene Paradox is this dynamic.  So what is the Abilene Paradox?  It is when healthy debate and outcomes are foregone in place of conflict avoidance.  Basically it is putting consensus above positive outcomes and productivity. Interestingly, the AbileneContinue reading “Avoiding Conflict, The Abilene Paradox”