Design Thinking as a Leadership Practice

In an ever-changing world, it’s more important than ever for leaders to have the tools to be able to navigate change and innovate. It’s also important for leaders to have opportunities to spur creative thinking in a world that is cluttered with a lot of noise and distractions. Most importantly, though, leaders need support in connecting with people and building empathy.    When frameworks are provided to help spur innovation and build valuable people skills, we find that leaders are better equipped to move forward.  It seems counterintuitive to use a process to try to break away from routine thinking and/or

6 Steps for Choosing Leadership Training Content and 7 Recommended Frameworks

We’ve had the opportunity to begin training a group of leaders for a client using a global curriculum the client developed.  As facilitators, we have the opportunity to take the quality content developed and structure learning in a way that allows the participants to apply the content to impact their behavior at work. Hopefully, this will lead them to invoke positive influence on those they lead and interact with.  Any good training frames learning around well-researched models or theories.  And there are a lot of models and theories out there! How you sort through them all and determine what to

Lead Up and Learn Up

MYTH: Individual Contributors can’t shift the paradigm at the organizational level.  Our team has a long-term partnership with a multinational company to facilitate leadership training for all of their Managers of People (MOPs) and Individual Contributors here at the local site. The program we’ve developed for them consistently receives glowing reviews, with one caveat: Individual Contributors are skeptical of a real shift among the “higher-ups”. The feeling is something like, “This is great and all, but unless corporate changes the way we do things, I can’t have an impact.”  Let’s tackle the myth.  Willie Pietersen, Professor at Columbia University and

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,