26 Feb 2017

Courageous Conversations, Feedback, Values and Purpose
secret of influence grooa
Not everybody is skilled in providing constructive and respectful feedback. Even with the best of intentions, many managers are unable to give useful feedback without judging, patronizing, or somehow acting superior, while making the other person feel small. When faced with this type of “feedback” (which sounds like criticism), it is natural to feel bad, but we can learn to stay calm and...
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01 Dec 2016

Feedback, Priorities / Trivial and Toxic Work, Values and Purpose
Grooa Being Present
If you are like me, you are probably very busy right now, juggling the additional work and private demands that seem to make most of us a bit more frantic than usual as we approach Christmas. Every year I try very hard to plan for additional buffer time to help me cope with the inevitable year-end urgencies; and every year I end up filling up all my buffer time and a little more. Yet t...
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29 Feb 2016

Courageous Conversations, Feedback, Priorities / Trivial and Toxic Work, Values and Purpose
Sometimes we tell we are very busy with a sense of pride; if we are busy, it means we are probably important, wanted and successful. Some other times we truly suffer, we are tired, exhausted, and overworked. We truly wish we could learn to say no. This is often a trap, a form of self-deception; and we may not need to learn to say: "no", we may actually need to learn to say: "yes, and.....
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16 Dec 2015

Courageous Conversations, Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Feedback, Values and Purpose
No matter how many conflict management courses you have taken or how many negotiation books you have read, you may still find yourself in confrontational situations where tools and tactics are not as effective as they promised to be. The real issue is in our mindset. The key question to ask ourselves is: do we see disagreements and conflicts as time-wasting issues or as opportunities ...
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16 Dec 2015

Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Feedback, Mindful Leadership and Mental Safety, Values and Purpose
As managers and leaders we can do very little to motivate others. Unfortunately, we can very easily demotivate (e.g. by unfair and abusive behaviors). But we can do a lot to create something more important: Engagement and Satisfaction, which have a more sustainable effect on positivity and productivity. The true responsibility of a leader is to engage others around a common compellin...
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07 Sep 2015

Courageous Conversations, Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Feedback, Mindful Leadership and Mental Safety, Values and Purpose
During my 40 years in management, I steadily held a belief: that when you follow your passion, work will be your hobby and everything will go well; business challenges and personal frustrations can be swiftly overcome; it is easy to consistently make the sound choices that add value to the business; and you achieve happiness and satisfaction. Now, as a consultant, I realize that individu...
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20 Mar 2015

Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Feedback, Mindful Leadership and Mental Safety, Priorities / Trivial and Toxic Work, Values and Purpose
We see evidence of it every day, research supports it, and deep inside we know it to be true: happy people are more productive and tend to be more successful than sad people. But wait a minute: don't we usually say that we need to work hard to pursue success, and only then shall we be happier? Well, it seems like we got it backwards. Does success bring happiness, as many say, or is...
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01 Dec 2014

Feedback
A woman and a man behind a red umbrella
Most of us feel a bit anxious about giving feedback; we may say things like "it is easy to give positive feedback, but it is difficult to give negative feedback"; at times we may strive to turn the negative feedback into "constructive feedback"; and sometimes we may forget to give positive feedback. When we think of feedback in terms of positive or negative, we are actually thinking a...
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21 Nov 2014

Feedback
two coworkers talking to each other, a man wearing glasses and a woman wearing a
When we hear phrases like “I need to give John some feedback”, we intuitively sense that John must have somehow messed up. Depending on the tone, we may feel some sympathy for either John – who is going to get “whipped” – or for the manager - who will likely have to face a string of denials, rebuttals and resentment. But does it have to be like that? Not really. Observational Feedback...
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16 Oct 2014

Feedback, Mindful Leadership and Mental Safety, Values and Purpose
I never thought of myself as a workaholic, although many called me just that. After all, the job has always been my passion and I have always felt the responsibility. It took a six-week break (I had accumulated almost a full year of unused vacation days), and climbing Himalaya through Nepal, reaching Base Camp and back, to offer me with some unexpected gifts. It was not only the physi...
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