5 Minute Memo for MOPs

Are you a MOP? MOPs are Managers of People, and whether you are leaning into long-term remote work or reacclimating to an in-person work environment, here’s a 5-minute memo to help you stay on track.  Go easy — on yourself and others. There’s been a shakeup. Remember that we are all People First. We are People First in the sense that we are not ______ first (insert managers, leaders, bosses, etc.), and we should be People First in the way we manage and lead others.  Be inclusive — Everyone has a different story. Remember to acknowledge, respect, welcome, and celebrate

4 Ways to Cultivate Openness to Experience to Enhance Innovation and Leadership

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain I have recently returned from a nine-day trip to Turkey.  It’s been almost five years since I’ve traveled internationally, so I was excited that a trip that I thought would most likely not happen this year due to the COVID pandemic in fact did.   I was able to travel with my dad through Educational Opportunities,

How to Create a Great Day in Your Neighborhood

You know me, I oblige my husband about once or twice a year and watch a movie with him.  He told me he’d gotten It’s a Great Day in the Neighborhood especially for me, knowing it would be “my kind of movie”. It was.   The movie is based on a 1998 Esquire cover story titled “Can You Say…. Hero?”.  In the movie, the journalist Tom Junod, fictionalized in the film as Lloyd Vogel, undergoes a transformation of world view through Mr. Rogers played by Tom Hanks.   Lloyd sets out to uncover Mr. Rogers as a fraud, and Mr. Rogers

4 Ways Leaders Can Keep Remote Work Pros from Becoming Cons

I may be the only person in America that actually considered getting office space instead of ditching it in 2020.  Having run a business for almost ten years totally remote, I was beginning to question whether that was the best option for me and the business. As a company, three of our core values- people first, passion, and productivity- are guided by this statement: “To help drive passion and productivity, we don’t care how or where work gets done, just that it gets done in a way that meets client needs. This coincides with our desire to put people first

Four Simple Steps to Improve Your Business Writing

I often work with clients who aim to improve communication within their organizations. Many of them naturally focus their concerns on the verbal communication issues within their company but fail to evaluate the impact that their written communication may have.  Here are four simple steps to help improve your written communication:  Consider your audience. When preparing to draft written communication, whether it’s an email, marketing materials, or a business report, consider your audience. How you address a customer may be very different from how you would address an employee. How you present information on your company’s fourth-quarter earnings and goals