Joy at Work Thinking
Dear Friends and Family,
In previous years we have used the words “momentous” and “unprecedented” to describe the year. This year we are grateful to call the year Joyful. Many good things happened for us as a company. Much of that was because of the increase in the number of people we connected wit...
Written by Ed Cook
Commitment is a word that shows up in many places. Some commitments are more quiet and more personal. We make commitments via New Year’s resolutions, sometimes to a workout regime, sometimes to different eating habits, and sometimes to our relationships. Some of these commitm...
Written by Roxanne Brown
“What if it looked like we were succeeding and now things are going wrong? How do we recover?"
It’s not unusual for a project team to get overconfident about how a change is going and then experience a big reaction from stakeholders because they underestimated the impa...
Written by Roxanne Brown
When we’re seeking behavior change in the workplace, measuring it can seem like a really strange thing to do. Aren’t people too unpredictable to make measuring worthwhile? What exactly would we measure? What could it possibly tell us that we can act on? All valid concer...
Written by Roxanne Brown
Multiple simultaneous changes are business-as-usual for most companies. It’s often necessary for companies to make several changes at the same time in response to risk or opportunity. So how do you manage all of this?
Practical & Tactical
If you are leading a team tha...
Written by Roxanne Brown
We see Decision-making and Change implementation as partners. This thought was sparked because…
- When Ed came to my conferences about Change, he heard a lot of Change experts talk about the unfortunate position of implementing bad decisions
- When I went to Ed’s confer ...
Written by Roxanne Brown
When you're leading your team to change you may wonder: How do IÂ recognize and reinforce the progress people are making toward the change I have in mind?
Meaningful recognition demonstrates that you understand and respect the unique capabilities and contributions a per...
Written by Ed Cook
Engagement is a big word. Employee Engagement is an often discussed goal. Engaged employees are the ones who will stay with the organization. They are the ones who will do the difficult tasks and solve the difficult problems. But is this really true? Perhaps we need to go up ...
Written by Ed Cook
The last couple of years forced two global experiments, one in remote education and the other in remote work. Much of these two experiments are about human interaction. They explore what it means to communicate, to lead, to teach. The final and full understanding of those two...
Written by Ed Cook
The amount of each team member’s participation is a meaningful predictor of the success or failure of the team and the company culture. Participation means being part of the team, not just showing up. The same root word for “part” (as in being part of) is at the heart of “par...
Written by Roxanne Brown
For good reason, managing up gets a bad rap. When the concept was first introduced to me it was in the context of working for a difficult boss. Later it became a recommended strategy for getting promoted or keeping senior management happy. Applied in these situations it...
Written by Roxanne Brown
What's a Trust Fall? Or rather, what’s the point of it? The trust fall is an exercise meant to increase confidence between people: “I can rely on you for my safety and success when I’m at risk personally. And you can rely on me in the same way.” The hazards of the exerc...
