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All Topics • Conflict • Teamwork • Accountability • Meetings • Feedback • Personal Effectiveness • Toxic Work • Hybrid Work • Strategy • Connection
Latest Posts
Find What You Need
Why Taking Accountability is Risky
Accountability...
Is Productivity Really So Important?
Wells and Waterfalls: Sources of Energy to Power Your Work Day
The Other Side of Energy Management: Stop the Drains
Energy Management: Rituals, Routines, and Refills That Work
Does your energy run out long before your to-do list? Are you exhausted and uninspired by 3 p.m.? Does your family get the spent, hollow version of you every evening...
How to Make Your Energy Last All Day
It’s 11:12 a.m. You’ve already crushed your inbox, sat through one too many meetings, and your to-do list still looks untouched. Sound familiar?
For professionals, energy isn’t just about stamina—it’s...
9 Signs You Might Be Creating Drama on Your Team
Drama Detox: How to Reduce Emotionality on Your Team
Stuck in the Middle: Navigating Drama Between Your Teammates
Why Your Team Loves Drama
What To Do When Your Work Isn’t a Priority for Others
How to Coach for Better Prioritization
What to Do When Everything is Urgent
Leaders Do Not Understand Prioritization
Use Stress to Your Advantage
Reducing the Spillover Between Home and Work Stress
Addressing the Root Causes of Work Stress
Dealing with a Low EQ Teammate
Your Team is Lying to You, and It’s Your Fault
How Emotional Blind Spots are a Silent Career Killer
Is Emotional Intelligence Really That Important?
A Better Alternative to a To-Do List
Is your to-do list getting you down? Do you start lists only to lose them in the shuffle? Does transferring incomplete tasks from one list to another make you feel...
8 Things to Do to Prevent Multitasking in Meetings
What You Can (and Can’t) Multitask
Enough with Multitasking
Are you making a New Year’s resolution? I’m not usually into resolutions, but I have had some success with creating a theme for the year. One year, I made a...
Why You Can’t Say No at Work
Consequences For Not Being Accountable
Mistakes in Trying to Hold People Accountable
Don’t Include Feedback in Year-End Reviews
How to Stop Being Passive-Aggressive
Are you frustrated or angry with your colleagues but hesitating to address your concerns directly? Do you tend to express your dissatisfaction indirectly by being sarcastic, saying one thing while...
What to Say to Prevent Passive-aggressiveness
How to Address a Passive-Aggressive Colleague
Why Are People So Passive-Aggressive?
Coping With Unrealistic Expectations at Work
How to Deal with a Colleague Who Yells
Managing a Boss Who Doesn’t Know What They Want
Dealing with a Colleague Who Meddles
Do you have a colleague who’s constantly mucking about in your business? Poking their nose in? Stepping on your toes? Somehow, they have enough time to do their job AND...
10 Ways to Help People Say Uncomfortable Things
Are you struggling to foster open, frank, candid communication among your teammates? Do uncomfortable conversations happen behind the scenes or not at all? Have passive-aggressive conflict styles stuck you with...
Why Your Message Might be Misinterpreted
Have you ever shared a message and been surprised by the receiver’s reaction? Maybe you said something you thought was innocuous, but the person responded by taking offense. Or you...
How to Communicate Better
You might think you’re doing a great job communicating with your colleagues, but do you know that your messages are landing as intended? There are myriad reasons why attempts to...
Strategies for Managing Emotional Contagion for a Healthier Team Dynamic
Emotional contagion has powerful effects on teams. It can cause the tenor to rise to match a great mood or fall in line with a sour one. I’ve previously talked...
How to Help Someone in a Bad Mood
Negative emotions are swirling around the workplace these days: overwhelm at the endless workload (and thoughtload), friction among coworkers, and stress from financial pressures. When negative emotions start swirling, it’s...
Reduce the Impact of Emotional Contagion
There has been a rising emotional buzz in the workplace lately, for good reason . While it’s understandable that your colleagues might be angry, frustrated, sad, or anxious, how do...
Rising Emotions and the Risk of Emotional Contagion on Teams
“Have you noticed that teams are more emotional lately?” Craig asked at the dinner table recently. (Such conversations are common when you work with your spouse.) I hadn’t put words...
The Easiest Way to Make Meetings Shorter
I facilitated a couple of full-day meetings last week. In both, I implemented a simple process that made the discussions quicker and better. Try this structure to make your meetings...
8 Alternatives to Having a Meeting
I love a good meeting, especially if its format is well-tailored to its content and purpose. But, wow, there are way too many meetings! Why is a meeting the default?...
Six Reasons to Meet Without Your Boss Present
Most teams I work with meet regularly. The routine is usually the same: the team leader calls the meeting, owns the agenda, chairs the discussion, and gets what they need...
Dos and Don’ts of Different Meeting Types
How many times a week do you complain about meetings? Too many, too long, too boring. Not worth it, not set up for success, not the right people? Wrong agenda,...
Improving Team Alignment
If you want a high-performing team, everyone must be aligned. But often, I find that teams make a cursory effort to get on the same page and then run off...
10 Helpful Things To Do When You’re Overwhelmed
In this series, I’ve been sharing strategies to manage your heavy workload so that you can work efficiently and effectively and manage your stress levels without getting completely overwhelmed.
In...
How to Deal with Someone Who is Not Self-aware
I’ve been delivering a shiny new speech about giving feedback . It’s full of unconventional ideas and new ways of thinking about how to use feedback more effectively. The best...
How to Give Positive Feedback
What did you do the last time you saw a colleague do something remarkable? Did you think, “Wow, that’s awesome,” and go about your day? Did you toss off a...
Common Mistakes in Strategic Planning
In my work with executive teams, I see many mistakes in strategic planning. Of course, the worst is not doing strategic planning, but even if you decide to invest in...
Don’t Confuse Strategic and Operational Planning
You might be trying to do too much with your strategic planning process. Are you smooshing operational and strategic planning into one undifferentiated, overwhelming, let’s-do-a-bunch-of-good-stuff-to-get-better plan? If so, you might...
How to Get Started on Strategic Planning
Is it time to initiate a strategic planning exercise for your organization? If so, you might be looking for a source of inspiration or momentum. But what is the genesis...
The Problem with Shared Accountability and Three Alternatives
Shared accountability is weak accountability.
If your goal is to establish a weighty sense of obligation to get a project from conception to delivery, shared accountability is your nemesis. Shared...
Want People Back in the Office? Deal with the Meeting and Email Burden
This is the third and final instalment in my series about how badly we’re botching the return-to-office transition. This time, I’m putting leaders in the crosshairs and imploring you to...
The Return to Office Fight is About Control not Productivity
I’ve had many conversations about returning to the office lately. In fact, I’m writing this post in a café in Ottawa while waiting to give a speech about it. I’ve...
How to Get Leaders Focused on Growth
I spoke with a successful entrepreneur last week. Her start-up has grown rapidly, and she’s feeling the pressure that success puts on her and her young team. Although each new...
Are You Saying Yes Too Often?
It's NOvember, the month where I provide 30 days of things to say NO to if you want to be happier, healthier, and more productive. Join the NOvember crusade on...
Using Personality Assessments with Your Team
So, your team has just done the DiSC, Hogan, the MBTI, or the Birkman.
You feel seen.
Finally, everyone can appreciate the multitudes you contain. Things will be better now....
Different Approaches to Decision-making Cause Friction
The 3COze High-Performance Teams process helps colleagues understand one another’s styles and needs and how the differences in those characteristics can affect team dynamics. This article is the tenth in...
To Multitask or Not to Multitask?
The 3COze High-Performance Teams process helps colleagues understand one another’s styles and needs and how the differences between teammates can affect team dynamics. This article is the ninth in a...
Are You Taking Steps to Prevent Burnout?
A humpback whale spends the summer feeding--ingesting two tons of krill daily. Two Tons. That’s more than 6,300 Big Macs.
Some might have thought I was imitating the mighty humpback...
How to Evaluate the Quality of Meetings
Why People Don’t Want to Return to the Office
Be My Guest
What To Do With an Untrustworthy Teammate
Do you have a teammate that you can’t trust? And when I say “can’t trust,” I’m not talking about the friendly incompetent who’s still getting up to speed on their...
Trust the Process
Here's a conundrum I see frequently. You're completely dependent on your colleagues to do their work (well and on time), but you're too busy to keep tabs on their progress....
Stop Trying to Sound Strategic!
I know, I know, you’ve been told that you aren’t strategic enough, so now you’re trying to reach a self-imposed quota for using big words and making references to The...
How Team Dynamics Affect Strategic Planning
Why Your Strategic Planning Needs More Insight
How Can I Be More Strategic?
How to Strengthen Connection on Remote and Hybrid Teams
Are You Using the Right Virtual Collaboration Tools?
Building Trust in Remote and Hybrid Teams
The Pros and Cons of Hybrid Teams
Toxic Team Dynamics
8 Techniques to Make Meetings More Effective (Part II)
More...
8 Techniques to Make Your Meetings More Effective (Part I)
End Your Meetings Properly
Too Many False Alarms
Design by Committee
Stop Solving Problems
A Different Take on Psychological Safety
To Foster Trust, Ask for Help
How to get things done when you aren’t motivated
How to Improve Hybrid Meetings
- Tune...
Why You’re So Busy and How to Ruthlessly Prioritize
What if you’re the jerk?
How to Sell Your Strategic Idea
Working Cross-functionally? Build Trust Before You Need It
Team Building Exercises for Remote Teams
Questions to Redirect a Low-Value Meeting
Pay Off One Conflict Debt in Your Life
Reset Your Remote Management Approach
(I’ve gone into some detail in this post and therefore it's long. If you want this in a quicker, click-through version. You can check it...
Do You Have a Theme for the Year?
2020 Wrap Up
What Could You Say No To?
Dysfunctional Behavior in Disguise
When Not to Apologize
Exercise: Giving Feedback Gently
Do Teams Decide?
How to Onboard New Employees Remotely
How to Make Yourself Feel Better
How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation Remotely
Getting Your Team Unstuck
Reducing Conflict Fatigue
The Role of a Team Leader
Hey Leader, It’s Not About You
The First Steps to Create a Productive Conflict Habit
10 Tips to Prevent Misalignment from Destroying Trust
Conflict Debt
Feedforward Instead of Feedback
If Meetings Suck, Why Do You Keep Going?
How to Receive Feedback
How to Draw Out the Quiet People
The Surprising Source of Most Trust Issues
Are you meeting at the wrong time?
How to handle someone who talks too much
Maybe You Shouldn’t Give Feedback
When you’re not the subject matter expert
Read the damn pre-read people!
How to get a juicy conversation
Focus Your Time on Your Real Value
How to Give Feedback to Someone Who Doesn’t Report to You
Running a great strategic meeting
Running a great monthly meeting
Running a great weekly meeting
A better meeting structure
10 Questions to Increase Collaboration
4 ways to stimulate better discussions
An alternative to using ground rules for meetings
Working in a regional office
Can your team make decisions?
How to facilitate an efficient meeting
Inefficient Meetings
Do your meetings go off on tangents so that two hours later you’ve covered a wide swath of territory but made no progress? Do you find yourself at...Virtual Teams and How to Give Feedback from Afar
How to end a meeting
How to start a meeting
Are you starving for a useful meeting?
How to Accept Positive Feedback
How to Take Constructive Feedback
How to Deliver Feedback
Maybe You Don’t Need to Be a Team
WAIT! Read this before attending another useless meeting
I hear no shortage of complaints about meetings. Sometimes I hear them from people who just mindlessly move from one meeting to another requiring them to move their individual job...
Twas the night before
Your Teammate is Not Weird: Simple Rules About Respect
What Teams Can Learn From Olympic Athletes
Are You Working With a Toxic Team?
Are You on a Toxic Team?
Sometimes, the consequences of team dysfunction are relatively innocuous. The team might just be a little slower or a little less rewarding than you'd...The ‘You’ in Team
Vulnerability – A Strength or a Weakness?
How Much Vulnerability to Show at Work?
The stoic, stiff-upper-lip generation gave us really bad advice when they taught us never to show weakness. Unfortunately, some of the huggy-lovey people...Know When and How to Say ‘No’
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