Make gratitude the new normal in your life. January can be a time of uncertainty, resolutions, frustration, maybe even depression, right?  It's also an opportunity for a fresh start.  Let's focus on that! One very powerful way to embrace a fresh start is to begin practicing daily gratitude and make it a habit – your new normal.  There are many benefits to making gratitude a daily part of your life. Hundreds of studies have proven it improves your health, helps you sleep better, extends your life, and increases feelings of happiness and self-worth.  Gratitude will do more th ..read more

Communication works for those who work at it. ~ John Powell How well do you communicate? Every contact we make involves communications skills - speaking and listening,  speech patterns, the words we use, the tone of our voice, our body language and even the silences all play a part in how successful our communications are. Self-awareness can be one of the most effective ways to identify and improve your skills. Take this quick assessment to learn more about how well you currently communicate. Assess Your Communication Skills This short assessment is designed to give you some insight ..read more

Let's face it. We've spent the last 3 years dealing with wild, unprecedented, crazy, depressing, hopeful, heartbreaking, strange, and (add your favorite pandemic adjective here) emotions. No breaking news there. But most importantly, for many of us, it been a time of learning - whether we wanted to or not - the power of the pause. The word “pause” has been used a lot to describe how, for most of us, we’ve been able to slow down life a bit. It’s been an unexpected benefit of a global pandemic. To those of you who have been busier than ever trying to keep us healthy and safe, I truly t ..read more

Last month I gave a presentation for the 11th Annual Washington State Government Lean Transformation Conference. I have attended and/or spoken at all of the conferences, and they are always a highlight of my professional development journey.  The team of conference organizers did a remarkable job getting 30+ presenters prepared for the event to run smoothly. They did this in spite of people like me, who was well prepared and still missed hitting the "show your screen" on cue, and who got confused and thought the session was 45 min instead of an hour - even though I knew bet ..read more

If nothing else, the pandemic that started in 2020 introduced us to an historical digital experience that has changed business communication. And with it the introduction of endless virtual meetings. The virtual and in-place communication trend is predicted to be the beginning of new era of standard communication revolution. Safe to say, they are here to stay. One of the biggest challenges is managing all those virtual meetings. How do you keep participants engaged and interested meeting after meeting? It’s certainly a challenge for leaders, and takes additional strate ..read more

Make gratitude the new normal in your life. As we welcome fall, we begin the season leading up to the big day of gratitude – Thanksgiving – when we celebrate all of our blessings with friends and relatives. I love fall for this very reason. Gratitude comes into the spotlight! Then, after Thanksgiving, comes the season of giving (Christmas/Hanukkah) and more gratitude and goodwill. Win-Win. Then, sometime in January, we go back to the “real world” of uncertainty, resolutions, frustration, maybe even depression, right? So, what if we started now and practiced daily gratitude to make it a habit ..read more

When it comes to improving your workplace communication skills, small changes will make a big difference. Remember the David Letterman Show and his Top 10 Lists?  I know I'm aging myself here - I got hooked on them in college and still love to use them as a way to illustrate the best of the best - the top of the heap... THE TOP 10!  So, I've compiled my TOP 10 workplace communication challenges with some ways to make improvements. That includes changing some habits and practicing some skills that will Immediately Improve your day-to-day workplace communication skills. Here we go ..read more

Becoming a more confident communicator is all about building good habits. Think about brushing your teeth. That’s a habit we learn at a very early age, and over time, it’s something we do without thinking every day. That’s the type of habit you want to develop as you become a more skilled and confident communicator. Here are three of the habits you can start with.  You will find that when you make these habits part of your daily routine, it will make a huge difference.  1. Start Your Day Well What are the morning habits that set you up for success for the day? Try one of these: Star ..read more

Meetings only run well if they are facilitated well from start to finish.  Knowing how to run good meetings is a skill that anyone that is ever in charge of ANY kind of meeting facilitation. Ever Been in Meeting Hell? Haven't we all?  When I’m in poorly run meetings, I get distracted and find myself doing unproductive things like calculating the cost of the meeting (number of participants x approximate cost per staff hour x number of hours/minutes).  And if I’m distracted, there’s a good chance others are as well. That equals to a whole lot of time being wasted. On the othe ..read more

It may sound overly simple but adding purposeful appreciation towards others can be one of the most powerful communication tools you can hone.  People want and need to feel appreciated.  The Power of Appreciation The data around adding appreciation supports this: Workers who receive regular appreciation at work = 5x more engagement and productivity According to a 2020 UW study, on an average day: People at work receive positive vs negative feedback 1:10 In long-term successful relationships, an average day has 9:1 positive vs negative interactions   The bottom line ..read more