We face constant pressure to deliver results.  Take a beat with your team to review the wins this year, celebrate them and, most importantly, be curious – explore what enabled those successes. Curiosity is a secret weapon, especially when teams are physically apart some or all of the week.  Yet curiosity is easy to breeze past in our hectic work world – we’re onto the next thing.  But, by asking the right questions, we improve the way we work together and boost morale along the way.

Talking about AI with your team can be tricky.  I discussed this topic with Esther Han, Chief Ventures Officer at Consumer Reports, in a recent podcast episode.  She and her team are already experimenting with AI technologies, running their existing content through AI "pipes" to explore new possibilities

Whatever work model you’re dealing with these days, it’s worth taking a minute to reflect on the practices and actions that can help it thrive. Just requiring folks to come in a few days a week guarantees nothing in terms of engagement and productivity.

Trust in the new world of work is a hot topic these days. Lots of voices, lots of clashing opinions.

We all know the story – it’s truly as old as time. A strong individual contributor gets promoted to frontline management and receives little to no support or training.

Those who ignore the need for social connections and relationship building do so at their peril.

Depending on how you answer this question, you may be creating a huge vulnerability for your group or business.

Managing and leading people is rarely celebrated in and of itself. You might get recognition for leading a productive team; the results you generate may get some attention, but the particular efforts you put into aligning others and enabling your staff to be successful, etc. will not receive any particular recognition.

Creating regular moments at work for recognition and/or celebration isn’t encouraging complacency. Numerous psychology studies show that positive feedback drives the behaviors you want to see much more effectively than critical feedback.

As you share information in a training setting, be sure that you break the concepts or information or skills into “chunks” that are “digestible” for the learner.

There are a few key things to keep in mind when dealing with adult learners. For most busy adults, their time is precious. They’re not willing to waste it. Accelerate their learning and uptake with this tip.

When I started my master’s in education back in the 90s, I discovered I had the military to thank for my particular field of work. First, I was surprised to discover that the concept of instructional design started in the armed forces. After some reflection, I wasn’t surprised at all.

When we human beings become expert at something, we are sometimes surprised to find that we are not very good at explaining how to do the thing we are expert in.  

“My door is always open,” the manager/leader says. Is it really though? Without substance behind it, a phrase like this comes across as empty management speak.

You’ve heard it before – whenever we “return to work,” the workplace will be different than pre-pandemic. During this transition to the new normal, beware of judging your team mates for where they work and when.

A powerful approach to driving employee engagement is to simply ask, What have you learned lately?

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that a fundamental mindset shift is required if people managers (supervisors, team leads, project managers, etc.) are to succeed in their role. And by success, I mean enabling not just your own success but that of your team. I mean achieving results through others b/c that’s what it’s about now, not just you and your stellar output.

No one is born knowing how to manage people. It’s a competency (i.e. a combo of skills, knowledge and attitudes) that is learned over time – with training, practice, hard knocks and hopefully good role models along the way.

Whether you directly supervise a group of employees or serve as team lead/project manager, aligning and enabling a group of people to deliver results can be daunting, tiring, and at times darn lonely. Or darn frustrating. Your employees assume you know the answers to a myriad of questions, from the company’s decision-making rationale on annual increases to solving a key technical issue on their project to resolving a conflict between two departments. Your peers and your manager want a piece of you too. You’re often pulled in many and at times conflicting directions.

Everyone loves to assume training can fix things. It’s a concrete event that can be checked off – done. It offers the hope that a person’s stumbling blocks will somehow disappear once she or he completes a workshop or eCourse. It also allows a manager to hand off an issue to a facilitator in a classroom, rather than having a straightforward conversation with an employee.