I was consulting on a project for an organization, and as a part of that work I was asked to join the project team conference calls. On the first call, I noticed that people were strangely quiet. The project manager, hired to lead this team,...
When was the last time you heard someone brag about going home on time? Taking a weekend off? Or completely disconnecting from work on a three-week vacation? People used to regularly do these things. I was one of those people. It was normal. But here’s the...
When I was a child, my parents decided it wasn’t OK for people to smoke in our house. They didn’t smoke themselves, and they didn’t want their children to take in second hand smoke. While that would be perfectly normal in today’s world, in the...
In a course that I took once with author, Patti Digh, she made a comment about doing some of her best work when she “lowered the bar.” It made me think of the bar I set for myself sometimes and how impossible it is to...
It had been 16 years since my last triathlon, and 4 years since I had even raced a 5 km run, but when my husband suggested that our family enter a sprint-triathlon and my 13-year old daughter was excited to compete in her first one,...
In “The Deep Change Field Guide: A Personal Course to Discovering the Leader Within” Dr. Robert Quinn points out that launching a company-wide change effort without considering the role of culture in the process is the equivalent of “learning that your brain surgeon is ignorant...
“Research shows that corporate purpose statements often do more harm than good because they are political exercises rather than words that people passionately believe in,” were the words of Dr. Robert Quinn when I interviewed him for “A Better Place To Work: Daily Practices That...
I caught up with my friend Kathryn on a recent trip through Field, in the Canadian Rockies, where she and her husband run a pottery studio. Getting together reminded me of when we worked together as lifeguards in my teens at a small, outdoor pool...
When I get a consulting request from a small business or team to work with them on their culture, it is often when they have reached the size of about 35 employees. Up until this point the business or group has been growing and there...
This morning my yoga instructor reminded us that how we transform is through daily practices. She was talking about our bodies and minds, but the transformation of leaders, teams and organizational culture also works this way. We transform through what we decide to do daily....