Distinguishing Team Coaching from Team Building
OK…so this image is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek metaphor for what team building sessions can become. No disrespect intended. I have led many a Team Building experience, which resulted in exactly what the client hoped to achieve. Team Building often involves a one-off shared experience away from the regular work environment. The goal? Typically…
Changing Jobs During a Pandemic: Listen, Observe & Ask Questions
Overwhelmingly, senior executives, human resources professionals and recruiters alike point to “listening, observing & asking questions” as the number one skill to focus on in the first 90-days in a new job, in any environment. How does this emphasis shift when trying to successfully navigate into a new leadership role during the current pandemic? I…
Changing Jobs During a Pandemic
As if life wasn’t stressful enough these days. Leading up to March, 2020, you were anxious about your job not being an ideal long-term fit. Then the pandemic hit and you’ve been worried about how to keep your kids learning and actively engaged while schools have been closed. There are concerns for you and your…
How Might You do LESS and Have MORE Impact?
How often have you heard yourself say, “I’ve got so many balls in the air I don’t know how I can possibly keep track of them all?!” We may be managing to keep the balls in motion, but how good is our juggling performance really? Are our movements controlled and rhythmic? Or are we merely…
Getting The Issue Out In Front
What’s a relationship without an issue?! Relationships within our work teams; relationships with our customers and suppliers; relationships with our managers; and of course, our relationships in our personal lives all encounter issues. When we boil it down, we often end up pointing to a “lack of communication” as the source of the problem. And…
Listening to be Heard
I am fascinated by ironies. In my work with executive coaching clients, I find that they frequently discover that their long-held beliefs about leadership directly contradict their actual experiences. Frankly, they would do better to flip many of these beliefs on their heads. And so it is with being heard. It seems that it’s not…
In A Great Team, Everybody Leads
We often think of “leadership” in the sense of “managing, directing or making approval decisions.” But think of the times when you’ve been part of a team and a break-through idea came from an individual with a curious twist on how to solve the problem. This fresh perspective can spark an idea that others then…
‘Tis the Season for Connecting
In Canada, it seems, this is the time of the year when colleagues, clients and suppliers can count on being able to actually connect. I don’t mean times when they can squeeze in a meeting to accomplish a specific business transaction. I’m talking about actually getting together in a relaxed atmosphere where the focus is…
Could the Greener Grass You Are Seeking be in Your Own Backyard?
We’ve all heard the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”. In a work context, this may mean having wistful thoughts about what it might be like to work for the company across the street.” These thoughts often form when something is not sparking us in our current jobs….
Asking for Help
For many of us, asking for help is a difficult concept. It can require a certain amount of vulnerability. We may feel as if we are admitting a weakness that the world would not have known about, had we not asked for help. Ironically, it’s been my experience that people who are able to deliver…