What To Do When Your Best Employees Lose Passion

I had a discussion with a very intelligent manager – let’s call her Sally – a few weeks ago. When I first met her, she was full of energy and ideas. She was looking forward to an illustrious career and to learning more in her role. She had been identified by her Manager (let’s call her Barbara) as a high potential leader – someone who …

How I’m Getting Past Writer’s Block

I have been struggling with writer’s block lately… it all started with a viral post on LinkedIn. I wrote about “how I stopped sucking at networking”, and within hours, had tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. I felt a little like the Chewbacca mom probably felt in the first few hours after her post – although she’s certainly …

Woodbine Entertainment Group is Reinventing HR

I was honoured to be invited to a top-secret event held at Woodbine Racetrack a few weeks ago… When I got the invitation, which said very little, I was intrigued. I know Tania Caza as a forward-thinking HR leader, who has attended the Reinvent Work Summit and is passionate about engagement and culture. So without knowing what I was attending, …

Three Keys to Courageous Conversations

I’m prepping for a Courageous Conversations workshop tomorrow and as I’m reviewing the materials, I’m remembering the feedback and “a-ha” moments that we often get when we deliver this training to leaders. There are three things that stand out to me as I look back at what past participants said about their most important …

How to Improve Employee Engagement, Even If You’re Not the Boss

It’s two weeks after the WorkHuman conference, and my mind is still buzzing with thoughts from the great speakers. One of the most prevalent themes for me was the concept of individuals themselves being responsible for their own employee engagement. This wasn’t explicitly called out by any of the speakers, so it may be my bias, as I work …

Leading Change in a WorkHuman Way

A week ago today, I was at the WorkHuman Conference, hosted by Globoforce. Today, as I was facilitating a workshop on Leading Innovation and Change, I was still basking in conference afterglow. Workhuman was packed with insights with some of today’s best thought leaders. Since my workshop was about Leading Change, I thought I’d share some …

Leadership is Not About Making Time To Lead

One of the most common obstacles I hear from leaders who say they want to improve their leadership impact is that they simply don’t have time. They don’t have time to have weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one conversations. They don’t have time to have team meetings. They don’t have time to spend reflecting on how they have demonstrated …

Why I Don’t Throw Parties When People Leave

Once upon a time, I had a job that I loved. I was fully engaged. Talk about discretionary effort – I invested all of my effort! I was positive and happy. I had many “best friends” at work. I knew that my role contributed to the bigger picture and that every day I was making an impact. I loved it. Then things changed. It didn’t …