16
Mar

What’s Your Legacy? A Visionary Founder’s Passing Has Me Thinking…

A few days ago, the founder of the company where I started my career passed away. Paul Jeffery was a true entrepreneur and visionary. He founded Kelsey’s and Montana’s restaurants and created the organization where I learned how awesome culture and work could be. His legacy is strong, and impacted thousands. There is so much I could say …
01
Sep

The Most Unproductive Conversation Leaders Are Having

There is one conversation that comes up time and time again when my corporate HR and Leader friends are sharing their work stories with me. It’s a conversation that drives me nuts. It’s a conversation that I used to have, too, when I was working in the corporate world, so I can see how it is perpetuated in that grey, cubicle-filled, bureaucratic …
24
Mar

Is Your Corporate Culture Creating Quitters?

When I left, it was becoming really corporate. I felt like my opinion and thoughts didn’t matter at all anymore. That’s what I overheard this afternoon while settling in at a “coffice” to get some work done in between meetings in Toronto. The conversation continued, as the two women discussed work. I deduced that one of them …
17
Dec

You’re wrong about what engages employees

Last week, I was struck once again by how wrong leaders often are about what engages employees. As I was outlining a plan for culture workshops with the senior leadership team at a client organization, I described a brainstorming activity for the employees in the room to come up with ideas for making each other’s day and creating a positive work …
04
Aug

Rebel HR – It’s Time to Burn Your Employee Handbook

Many years ago, I read the book “Get Weird! 101 innovative ways to make your company a great place to work”. It was one of my first realizations that there were other people “out there” who believed in innovative HR – unique and different ways of managing the workplace. One story shared in the book was about an Employee …
28
Jan

5 Lessons in Personal, Employee and Customer Engagement from a 5-Hour Flight Delay

I am back from a fabulous week in Samana and had to share the story of our travel there, and the lessons it provides for personal, employee and customer engagement. For background, we booked a “roulette” vacation where you don’t know exactly which resort you are staying at until you arrive, and our 6:30 am flight was delayed 5 hours …
10
Aug

6 things leaders can learn from dog training

My dog, Piper, is awesome.  The reason she’s awesome: shortly after getting her from the local SPCA, I spent a lot of time training her.  I have continued training her over the past 9 years.  The more time I have spent training her, the more I have noticed parallels between dog training and employee training.  Here are a few principles that …
28
Apr

Storytelling to engage your team

I recently had an opportunity to participate in a webinar, led by Anecdote, a consultant firm out of Australia.  Anecdote specializes in storytelling to bring company’s strategies to life, and the webinar was about leveraging storytelling to build engagement.  I have never worked with Anecdote, so can’t tell you much about them but I can …