Often, we label people who are not team players “difficult.” Sometimes it’s definitely warranted-if they’re not fulfilling their job descriptions and/or pushing off their responsibilities to others. But how often are we considering whether or not the problem isn’t the “difficult” person, but in our own requests? “Just a quick […]
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Uncomfortable Conversations
Conversations around things like racial justice, reproductive rights, feminism, or fat phobia might be uncomfortable for you. Often we silence ourselves and opt out of these conversations because of a lot of different reasons. We might feel ignorant about the subject, or be wary of accidentally causing harm to someone. […]
Hog-tied in a Classroom
Even if you are factually right, you have to understand that most people hate to be told that they’re wrong. After all, no one enjoys being wrong – at best people look at being wrong as lessons to learn from, but I’m not sure anyone really enjoys it. So how […]
Weekends
When I worked in retail, I never got the allure of weekends. After all, these were the most busy days of the week, and if I was looking for a break, it would usually be on a Monday or something. I often work with global teams, meaning that my mornings […]
The Illusion of Disaster
Many times we look at failure and see utter ruin. We’re homeless, starving, humiliated and abandoned by our friends and family. All from not having a project ship on time. Or getting fourth place in the Olympics. Fear has caused us to overemphasize the doom that awaits us failing, so […]
Invisible Costs
It’s easy to track expenses that are obvious expenditures. Salary costs, program licensing fees, the manufacturing cost of your new product, or the training cost of upskilling a manager. It’s harder to track things like how much it costs you to run an all-hands meeting every week, or how much […]
Enrollment
Changing someone’s mind is incredibly difficult if they’re not already open to changing it. We often try brute-force intellectual attacks with a barrage of facts, and when that doesn’t work, we start humiliating them when it is exposed that they’re not probably operating off of truth. While giving people the […]
The Worst Piece in Your Portfolio
In the visual art world, there’s a saying that you’ll get hired by the worst piece in your portfolio. What this means is not that the person hiring is going to fall in love with your worst piece – it means that you’re going to be judged by the weakest […]
The Future is Trust
Most people don’t think about trust very often, unless they come across a breach of trust. Maybe it’s your boss not trusting you with autonomy and micromanaging, or clients not trusting you enough to commit to a purchase order. Perhaps what gets you thinking about trust is a stranger returning […]
Environmental Factors
Whether it’s the literal climate around you, or the tidiness of your living space, or your working environment, it’s important to understand your own tendencies and how your environment affects you. As much as you can change it, you want to ensure that you’ve created an environment that will push […]