A workplace can facilitate, foster, and enable flourishing, or it can disrupt, thwart, and impede it, says motivation expert Susan Fowler in a cover story for Personal Excellence magazine. In Fowler’s experience, the motivation practices used in many organizations have undermined engagement more often than they have engaged employees. Fortunately the new science of motivation has…
Yesterday, I went to my favorite retail store to pick up a pair of silver hoop earrings for my friend’s birthday. While there, I saw a lot of little things that felt new and fresh. I asked my usual salesperson (who has been there forever), “What is different around here? It feels spacious and inviting!”…
Years of corporate restructuring, shuffling people between positions, adding, deleting, and modifying roles, departments, and jobs has taken its toll on people. The mantra of “doing more with less” has become the norm as business continues a slow recovery from the economic recession of the last several years. Employees who once feared losing their jobs…
The flow is the mental state you’re in when you’re fully immersed in an activity that consumes your entire focus, energizes your attention, and produces a deep level of satisfaction and joy through the process. In the groove…in the zone…wired…in the moment…on fire…and my personal favorite, beast mode, are all ways of expressing this condition. It’s when we do…
As we have discovered with all five of the eroding beliefs in this series of posts, completing this statement falls off the tongue: If you cannot measure it, it doesn’t matter. I was a longtime aficionado of SMART goal setting when the “M” stood for “Measurable.” However, over time, I found that a specific, measurable,…
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.” ~Albert Schweitzer A common leadership challenge I hear in our workshops is: “How do I lead when I don’t have authority?” Even when we do have formal authority, we often need to influence up and across the organization. But should we use…
Have you ever asked yourself what it is your people actually work on throughout the day (or night)? I’m sure a lot of you know in general terms the type of work being done, but do you know the finer details? More importantly, do you know how much of that work translates into something meaningful…