Years ago, after a period of intense reflection, I realized something about myself. When I looked back at the less successful ventures in my life, nearly all of them could be attributed to a failure to read the culture of a particular organization or group of people. My worst job experience ever was at a company that had a very strong culture around dotting i’s and crossing t’s. I had come from an entrepreneurial company where everything was, in the words of a colleague, “loosey goosey.” Creativity and risk-taking were rewarded, and lack of attention to detail was often forgiven or perhaps not even noticed. I failed to read the tremendous shift in my new organization and failed in the job as a result. But the examples I can come up with are not limited to organizational ones. I remember a boyfriend whose family I never really fit in with. …
In a recent article by Susan Cantrell and David Smith, How the recession has changed the face of talent management–for the good, the authors argue that tight budgets…
Recently I began a grant writing project to help raise funds for a local emergency services purchase. The process got me thinking, what if every organization had to…
If you want to get inspired to change your life for the better, read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. That’s assuming you haven’t already read this much-talked-about…
During a teambuilding session this week, I led a leadership team in an exercise to identify style. I asked them each to work in groups to identify three…
Harvard Business’ tip of the day this morning was to put culture before strategy in a turnaround. “To right an organization headed for trouble, you need to build…
For Mother’s Day this year, my mother and I had our traditional seafood dinner at her house, with fresh lobster and clam steamers. What was different this year…
When I teach a business writing course, my favorite part of the class is when I get to rail against “corporatese,” that pompous, inflated and indecipherable language that…
I drove across country last week and listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink on the way, my second read of this fascinating book. If you haven’t read it yourself, the…
Every diversity trainer I know presents some version of “dimensions of diversity” during an awareness class. That means they show some kind of list of diversity dimensions that…
Generally I update this blog twice a week; at the beginning of the week and at the end. This morning I sat for the longest time trying to…
The “E” word is empathy; apparently a dirty word in the world of justice. Dalia Lithwick, in a recent Newsweek column called Steven’s Real Legacy, decries the demonizing of…
Julia Baird, in a recent Newsweek column, reported some astonishing statistics from the Council on Contemporary Families that show that men are cheating less, spending more time with…
I’m reading The Dance of Change this week, an oldy but a goody from Peter Senge and others. Something that struck me as fascinating is what George Roth…
One of the high potential areas for unproductive conflict on your team can be found in the use of email. Let’s start with what everyone already knows. A large…
I facilitated a customer service workshop recently that reinforced something I’ve always believed: you can’t train for customer service orientation, you can only hire for it. That doesn’t…
A couple months ago I blogged about how important structured learning experiences are for new employees; you can read it here. Throwing them into the frying pan and expecting…
Recently I read that 68.6% of the companies responding to a training survey reported that they had a high need for creativity training but did not offer it…
This week I’ve had the pleasure of giving ski lessons to the children of some friends of mine; this is something I used to do professionally, but it’s been…
If you’re convinced that your team needs to have explicit, agreed-upon, written norms to operate by, the next question is, what kind of norms? Say you’ve decided to…