Sources of Conflict in the Workplace Managing conflict in organizations and teams can be the result of many different sources, including stressful situations, uncertainty, and differing perspectives or personalities.  Conformity, similarity, or minimizing differences is not an effective strategy to overcome problems even if that is a default mode for some people.  Diversity provides strategic advantages, but diversity also means varying interpretations, biases, and motivations of the meanings of our conversations and actions.  Conflict Can Create Better Outcomes Conflict is a no ..read more

How Perspective Impacts the Workforce and Back to School It’s the last day in August, and here in Canada, most kids will be returning (in multiple configurations) to school next week and parents will be presented with back to work options. It has been a hot topic this month. Some will be in person. Some will be online. Some have opted to homeschool this year. Schools are organized in various hybrid models, fully online, and fully in person for their delivery. With zero judgements on which choice you have made or support in the world of back to school, there is sometimes contradicting informati ..read more

How Perspective Impacts the Workforce and Back to School It’s the last day in August, and here in Canada, most kids will be returning (in multiple configurations) to school next week and parents will be presented with back to work options. It has been a hot topic this month. Some will be in person. Some will be online. Some have opted to homeschool this year. Schools are organized in various hybrid models, fully online, and fully in person for their delivery. With zero judgements on which choice you have made or support in the world of back to school, there is sometimes contradicting informati ..read more

Big Rock Thinking and Action More Important Than Ever Without applying successful habits and tools like Stephen Covey’s 4 Quadrants it’s easy for leaders to be taken over dealing with urgent and important business matters especially this year with the pandemic. As a team leader you may relate to this famous quote from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1954 In a later address he added: “especially whenever our affairs seem to be in crisis, we are almost compelled to give our first attention to the urgent present rather than to the importa ..read more

Global HR Trends from 10,000 HR Professionals In 2019, Deloitte – one of the largest professional service organizations in the world – surveyed nearly 10,000 HR and IT professionals from 119 countries to pinpoint the HR trends happening in the world of human resources around the globe. Although this survey was done before Covid-19, we highlight five important HR trends that are relevant in 2020 both pre-pandemic and recovering from its longer term impacts. 1) Societal impact is now the number one measure of success When asked to rank their most important measures of success, CEOs most frequent ..read more

We rounded up a few of the best articles we read in July 2020 that we think summarize the flexibility, adaptability and learning mindsets that successful organizations are exhibiting. Facilitated by a framework of strong relationships among teams, there are some great ideas and suggestions in these articles that we hope will inspire and strengthen your team. From Fully Automated Pizzerias to Hotel Pivoted Restaurant Rooms We read an interesting list of 100 business trends for July 2020. The creativity, adaptability and innovation required for many of the trends is amazing to see. For example ..read more

The Leaders Toolkit Includes Cognition How we as leaders handle the cognitive parts of our work responsibilities matters. To obtain a position in leadership, one is required to have a certain level of technical ability, skill set, and experience. However, this threshold ability does not determine our ability to deal with life and our ability to lead effectively. When it comes to our senses and leadership should we give ourselves permission to feel? Podcast Review: Brené Brown and Dr. Marc Brackett on “Permission to Feel” In her Unlocking Us podcast episode with Dr. Marc Brackett, author and re ..read more

Workplace Relationships, Professional Development and Trust Strong and connected workplace relationships is the foundation to our professional development. In business management author Patrick Lencioni’s book, ‘Five Dysfunctions of a Team’, he describes lack of trust as the base of being a strong team. Lencioni describes lack of trust as,  “When team members are reluctant to be vulnerable with one another and are unwilling to admit their mistakes, weaknesses or needs for help. Without a certain comfort level among team members, a foundation of trust is impossible. If you don’t have trus ..read more

Defining Well-Being As the well-being of our teams (comprised of a collection of unique individuals with differing needs) and the well-being of our organizations are in flux, it is a good time to reflect and pause to get clarity around what well-being is within our work contexts. Well-being and what it could or should mean compared to economic and productivity well-being is the subject of this interesting article posted in resilience.org.  Starting already last year, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern is taking a distinct leadership approach and prioritizing what she sees as ‘hu ..read more

Ten (more) Ice Breaker Games to For Your Online Meetings Ice breaker games for meetings are being used to energize teams and to help prevent “Zoom fatigue”. Reaching our targets or goals is important, and newer virtual teams have adapted and are continuing to adjust and change to be able to reach their goals. Admittedly, the pace of change in the last few months has been intense. But as we’ve discussed before, in order to remain sustainable, high performance teams also need to focus on the culture they create in pursuing their goals. We must find a way to not only focus on our outcomes and goa ..read more