Having Difficult Conversations: How to Mediate Conflict Between Employees
How do you handle the less fun aspects of being a manager, like intervening when people are experiencing conflict? It’s not fun, but you know that if you don’t address it things will only get worse. Conflict can arise from something as common as creative differences, or at the other extreme when people aren’t treating […]
Goal Setting: Do Less, Impact More
As we head into 2020, our team has been talking a lot about company goals. We’ve found value in taking pause to reassess not only our goals, tasks, and initiatives, but to closely examine the exact value that each one adds to the company. We have no doubt that any task, event, or choice we […]
You’ve Heard About SMART Goals, but What About CLEAR Feedback?
Performance reviews are an important aspect of a business that provides a structured time for a conversation about what employees are doing, how they are doing it, and how the business can help them do it better. Employees often dread this meeting due to past experiences where they get beat up during reviews, but that […]
Take charge of your values
If you go to any company and ask employees to name the values they see lived out in the organization, they’ll have answers – be decisive; have fun; customer first; this isn’t a safe place to make mistakes. The question companies should be asking is what their lived values are, if those are the values […]
What A Car Can Teach Us About A Successful Career
I was talking to Andrea, a leader in a big corporate here in the Seattle area. Very smart and hardworking she was, her resume spoke for itself. As a senior director role in this new job, she was facing some challenges. The main feedback was, others didn’t know what value she was bringing to the […]
5 Signs Your Subconscious is Telling You to Quit
Usually you just know when you’re ready to leave a job, but not always. Sometimes it’s more obvious to those around you, including friends, family and co-workers, long before you recognize you need to move on. Leaving is a big deal, and changing jobs is right up there with moving and having a baby when […]
Increase Influence by Recognizing Resistance: From Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting
I’ve been thinking again about my favorite section of Flawless Consulting, recognizing common types of client resistance. We all have clients, whether internal or external, and resistance happens constantly. Let’s get better at recognizing it so we can handle it better. Disclaimer There’s very little original thought here, it’s mostly a recap with a few […]
Weaponization of Values
Don’t Let Good Core Values Go Bad While most companies today set core values, they can unfortunately be a double-edged sword. At their best values serve as guidelines for the ethos of the company and drive the right kinds of behaviors and decisions. Too often, values end up being a meaningless word soup of business […]
5 Podcasts About Women at Work to Change How You Show Up
Professional women and their male advocates are constantly looking for ways to increase gender equality and speak out against sexism at work. There’s finally a lot being said on this topic, making it nearly impossible to keep up with the abundance of resources including books, articles, tweets, meet-ups, accelerator programs, and more. When you’re impatient […]
Hiring the Right HR Consultant in the Gig Economy
Like many founders, I’m a strong believer in hiring external consultants when they bring expertise you’re lacking, or a much needed extra pair of hands during busy times. I’ve had success using outsourced accounting, marketing, PR and even administrative support. I’ve had some misses too – a good reminder that not all consultants are created […]
