10 Feb 2021

Laura Lozza in front of a painting with diverse women - LIS Woman is a Learning and Networking Membership for International Businesswomen
As policy makers across many countries go about renewing and extending "contact restrictions" I find myself suspended in between a mild euphoria for the comfort of working from home and the heartbreaking longing for human contacts. It is a constant emotional rollercoaster that consumes energy, so that I get more easily fatigued and need more sleep. But that is not all. I also find tha...

22 Jul 2020

Businesswoman talking to colleagues in meeting - Grooa
Not a day goes by without someone telling me that they feel under increasing pressure to make faster decisions and deliver ever faster results. I am not surprised. The complexity and interdependence of work has dramatically increased in recent years at the same time as the digital agile world demands ever faster decisions and faster outcomes, whether the organisation one works in has a f...

07 Sep 2017

One woman and two men, all in work office outfit in position of fight
Do you know what today is the biggest obstacle to being innovative? I do not mean being technologically inventive (this is actually relatively easy). I mean having a positive and trusting approach to being truly innovative in our everyday, daring to voice a different opinion, or to seriously listen to a totally diverging point of view with the genuine curiosity of learning somethin...

13 Jul 2017

toxic work place article grooa
“Dear Laura, my workplace has become a nightmare; the workload is horrible, nothing is ever good enough, or fast enough, I am exhausted, my family suffers, I suffer, but I have no choice. Urgent requests keep coming, pressure increases, positions disappear, and I am afraid to loose my job, so I try to hold on, but I am not sure how much longer I can go on like this. What can I do? Love, ...

01 Dec 2016

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...

30 Aug 2016

Grooa how to say no article
If you find it difficult to say NO to colleagues, friends, your boss, or family, you are probably juggling a lot of tasks at the moment! Since you are busy, I will keep this short: you may want to try the ”YES, AND... ?” approach. About 40% of my executive clients have confessed a strong dislike for saying NO to boss and peers, while they find it easier to say NO to subordinates. Anoth...

29 Feb 2016

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.....

20 Mar 2015

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...

22 Sep 2014

I have been coaching hundreds of executives and I am always fascinated by one reoccurring question that my clients ask themselves out loud during our sessions and by their response to my reaction. The question is “I wonder what my team think about the new policy”. My reaction: “Have you asked them?” Their surprised response: “I cannot ask them, it is policy, we have no choice and if they...

22 Sep 2014

If you are able to use humor in the workplace and like to use it to diffuse tension, shake things up or create an open and safe space for brainstorming, you may also be aware that you have a double-edged skill in your hands. Humor can be both a unifier and a divider. Three elements need to be present to ensure that your inclination for using humor is sorting positive effects. Humor co...