Articles

With Spring upon us, many folks are doing Spring cleaning – that time of year when we wash windows, pull out the refrigerator to clean behind it – do all that cleaning that is under and behind.  It gives us a fresh start.  How many of us give our brains the same sort of Spring cleaning?  Just like the dust bunnies that collect underneath the bed, our brains hold on to things.  Those brain dust bunnies rent space in our

Daniel Pink, the author of Free Agent Nation says, “Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it.  You punish something, you get less of it.”  When misbehavior is punished, and rewards are done well, magic can happen.  Teams can achieve far more than they ever thought possible.  However, when parts of this equation aren’t well aligned, then the entire motivational scheme comes into question.  Unintended behaviors and actions happen – just because of the mis-alignment between rewards, punishment,

At the beginning of each new year, I like to take stock of the previous year and think of new resolutions. Keeping it simple is key for me to put the resolution into place. This year I have decided to focus on only one item – getting sufficient sleep. I am most productive first thing in the morning. And, to set myself up to do my best work in the morning, I need to start with the night before and

The topic of sexual harassment and assault seems to be a part of nearly every conversation I have had over the last month. From my husband asking me about my experience when attending engineering school and working in the corporate world, to my daughter asking about the process for reporting an incident, to a client asking if I had ever experienced it while working with him or his team. My son, who is in college, asked me if I had

My daughter recently got married. We didn’t employ a wedding planner and did much of the work ourselves. She and I developed a very good, detailed plan so that everyone involved knew what the couple wanted, what the individuals helping were responsible for, and when things were supposed to happen over the course of the rehearsal, ceremony, and reception. Given that much of my professional work is in the program and project management arena, I was feeling very pleased with

You come into work one morning and your manager says to you ‘Congratulations! You have just been promoted to manager!’ How you feel about this change could range from ‘terrific, this is something that I have been working towards’ to ‘holy crap – now what do I do?’ The transition to management is not easy under the best of circumstances. Typically, what has gotten you the promotion is the excellent results you have delivered as an individual contributor. It is

Is your team driving you nuts? Do you ever feel like they are conspiring to purposefully mess with your head when you are trying to set a direction? Have you ever had the situation where you had to get a project team to agree, conceptually, with a project direction? Some of the team members will go along with the conversation – giving their input as you go. Others focus on the details of ‘how’ things will be done. If you

I have the pleasure of working across many different industries.  Each industry provides its own, unique set of challenges.  Lately, though, I have been seeing more in common across the industries.  The commonality is the challenge of change.  While many organizations are focused on the changes within their own place, others are now understanding that THEY are actually the change for their customers.  If, for example, anyone implementing a project is implementing a change for the customers of the project. 

‘She doesn’t listen to me anymore.’  This was my mantra during the early teenage years with my daughter.  When she turned 11, suddenly I became the stupidest person on the planet – and anything I said was automatically discounted and dismissed.  While I understood that this was part of her growing up, it also concerned me because I did have good information for her.  But, I didn’t know what to do or what to try.  It was my friend and

Training and teaching have become such a big part of work. Every time there is something new, people need training. In many respects, we are in the learning business. But, have you ever had a moment when you are learning something new and you just don’t get it? As you look at your instructor’s face, you can see them struggle to find the right words that will make the concept become clear. If the concept doesn’t become clear, many times