I celebrated my birthday last week. The older I get, the more I realize there are only a handful of things in life that are truly important. Since my birthday falls in early January, it is a great time to reflect on what went well and what didn’t the previous year, and to set intentions for focus for the upcoming year. Prior to writing this post, my daughter, a high school senior, asked me to proofread a college scholarship essay. I may be biased, but it was wonderful. She gets it. It helped me realize that maybe I am doing
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
Later this month I’ll be speaking at HR Florida about Negotiation Skills. We are all negotiators, even if we don’t realize it. Think for a minute. What did you do when your alarm went off this morning? Did you immediately jump out of bed or did you negotiate with yourself to allow yourself just “five more minutes?” Did your kid talk you into letting them pack cookies in their school lunch instead of a granola bar? Or did you agree to allow Jim to take the lead on the new project at work because Ally has too much on her
When was the last time someone asked you how you prefer to learn? Has someone ever asked if you need assistive technology? As a trainer and facilitator, I definitely miss the mark sometimes on inclusive training. It’s hard. There’s no way around it; it’s not easy to design or deliver training in a language, structure, platform, etc. that works well for every learner. It’s hard, but it’s so important to try. There is robust research out there about learning styles, learner variability, and inclusive curriculum design. Let’s look at this excerpt from research about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a
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