This morning my 16-year-old informed me that tomorrow is “Senior Day” for Homecoming week and as part of the SGA leadership team, he has to dress up as a senior citizen. The immediate image in my head was that of an old man with a branded t-shirt, khaki pants held up by wide suspenders, and clunky white tennis shoes. So that’s what we went with. Why that’s the image that popped into my mind, I don’t know. My dad is 71, he’s a senior citizen, and he’s never dressed like that. My uncles don’t dress like that. In fact, no
Over the past few months, we’ve had several requests to facilitate training for boards of directors. Just last week, I met with a relatively newly formed board. They were receptive, attentive, and appreciative of the nuggets of information I shared. Source: National Council of Nonprofits Board governance is the primary purpose of a board. They aren’t tasked with handling the day-to-day activities, such as staffing. Every training I’ve done has been organized by a competent, engaged director hired by the board. Boards should focus on the mission of the organization, be transparent and make financial decisions that are in
We’re fortunate to work with hundreds of different people across industries and state lines, and we learn something new with each project and grow personally from every relationship. We also hear many, many stories about bad managers and toxic coworkers. Back in 2019, Lorrie addressed the question, Are Your Top Employees Also Your Most Toxic?. When I’m facilitating leadership or communication training, I often get the feedback, “I think I can try these strategies and behaviors with most of my coworkers, but what do I do with someone who is just a jerk?”. If we have the opportunity for more
Next week, I’m talking about Feedback and Feedforward at the Tennessee SHRM Conference. While preparing for this session, I’m reflecting on my own feedback and feedforward skills. Am I following my own advice in giving meaningful feedback and practicing feedforward? If I do receive input from others, am I following up and actually implementing any change? Are you? Just this morning, I received (unsolicited) feedback from my husband that I have not been practicing what I preach in work-life balance. I enjoy my work, paid and volunteer, so much that I have found myself with a plate that isn’t just
David Letterman most likely had it right when he said, “Life experience is the best teacher.” But I’d add a word and say that BAD life experiences are probably the best teacher, at least when you’re trying to grow in leadership and you’re willing to learn from them. Our Horizon Point team had a discussion about something related to this concept in a meeting based on some client experience that I can’t even recall now. This led to the idea of using this theme for a blog post. My team encouraged me to write about the lessons learned from difficult