Imagine you're a manager and it's 7:45 pm and one of your very stressed-out employees walks into your office (or calls you on Teams, or contacts you however they do) and gives you the following: I just need to say this before I forget—this reporting change that went live on Monday is completely throwing me off because the instructions keep shifting, and I’m getting Slack messages saying one thing while the spreadsheet says another, and then I’m being told it’s urgent and that

A boundary is only as good as your ability to communicate it effectively. And I don't know about you, but I love a good model to help me do something I find stressful. (Just see the STAR template for feedback if you don't believe me.) So here are the four C's of effective boundary communication, essential for standing up for yourself when someone is about to cross a boundary, or repeatedly does so. Let's start with clear : It's really important to be clear about where, exa

Remember that New Year's resolution you made? How well are you maintaining the necessary boundaries around your time, money, or energy to keep making progress? I've noticed in both my coaching and facilitating work that so many people - leaders and employees alike - are struggling to maintain healthy boundaries. Whether that's a physical boundary (like the vendor who sits too close) or, more often, a time boundary (never leaving at 6, even though you've promised your part

The new year often brings in change, sometimes new change on top of the existing boatloads of old change. And it's all well and good - we know change is a constant - but leading change, especially one you're not wild about, is a challenge I see many leaders struggle with. To lead a change successfully, you have to be a change agent. And being a change agent means more than just changing yourself -- it means actively guiding others through it, whether they report to you or n

I've been teaching goal setting for years, and when I started, the research was pretty clear that sharing your goals publicly would help you maintain motivation and make it more likely that you would reach your goals. It's worked for me for years, and I haven't questioned it. That is, until a client of mine really didn't want to share her goals, and insisted that the research had to be wrong. So I did a little digging to bring you an update. I was pleased to find that there

These goal-setting tools will get you up and running in the new year!

How many times have you delivered something - an email, a report, a simple task that someone offhandedly asked you to do on the way to the bathroom - and not quite gotten it right? Recently, I was working with a colleague who asked me to come up with a different way to present some concepts to our client, and I took that to mean he wanted a visual. I went to Canva and put together a couple of options for attractive visuals and 45 minutes later, when I was done, I learned th

As I mentioned in my recent newsletter (which you are welcome to sign up for here ), many people take time in December to reflect and prepare for the coming new year. Others are crunched with year-end requests, closing the books, or preparing for the onslaught of family visits. Whether you reflect in December or some other time of the year doesn't really make a difference - what matters is that you take the time to look back and find patterns, habits, and, ideally, motivat

The other day, I did some momming worthy of the Golden Globe for Best Parenting in a Comedy Series. My daughter had done something kind of stupid and impulsive and was mortified by her own behavior. My husband and I agreed that punishing her for what she did would just compound her embarrassment and shame, and so we decided to help her process her feelings instead. (And, of course, there was no screen time.) In that moment of parenting, I was intensely focused on the prese

I was talking to a girlfriend of mine the other day, and she mentioned that a guy she was dating was confusing her by praising her too much. "It's weird," she said. "I like it, but after a while it doesn't feel like it's true, or at the very least, that it's not about me." I asked what he was saying, and she said that he was basically just telling her that she was beautiful over and over again. "I'd like that, too," I said, "but I think after a while, if it's not specific,

Many moons ago, I was leading a learning and development team that was part of HR. Our jobs were to get up in front of a room full of skeptical people and share leadership, communication, or interpersonal skills, and so, in my mind, we had to look the part. For as long as I had led them, my team had dressed fairly conservatively (for our industry, at least), and it was never an issue. And then one day, one of my trainers came in wearing something that looked to me like a ba

On a recent business trip, I binge-watched season five of Scandal . I'm not wild about all the acting and the plot twists and turns so much I have whiplash, but the thing that struck me over and over again in the series is how nobody is held accountable for their actions . (Well, that is, unless they get shot. Then there's some accountability.) I won't ruin the plot, but there is a threat that the president will be impeached for doing something bad (that we all know he di

What's that smell in the air? Leaves falling? Pumpkin-spiced everything? The NYC Marathon runners prepping for the big day? No. It's the approach of Appraisal Season. Review Time. Annual Feedback. And if you haven't had good documentation all year, you're going to be feeling the pinch of bias and forgetfulness when it comes to reviewing your employees' performance over the last year. To help with that, here are some valuable tips for reviewing the documentation you've c

Before diving into this post, ask yourself: Where do you need to be more influential? Is it at work, with your manager, stakeholders, or direct reports? Is it at home, with your spouse, partner, or kids? Or is it in your community, with your friends, neighbors, or fellow members of an organization? No matter where you need to be influential, it's important to know who you're trying to influence and what matters to them . You, like my father, may get all jazzed up about

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