The fog has just rolled in. It is streaming down the bluffs and covering the redwoods. The fog drips down on the tops of the trees and through the forest. Nearly fifty percent of all water for redwood growth comes from fog.
In the Redwood forest, every drop of water counts. From the top of the trees to the forest floor, each drip matters. What can we learn from this unique ecological system? How can lessons from ancient ecological systems inform managers and teams? [Read more…]
How does a small and mighty nonprofit stay strong? sustainable? and resilient?
Let me introduce you to a small, strong and mighty nonprofit: Youth Art for Healing,(YAFH). YAFH’s mission is to bring works of art created by youth into healthcare environments for all to enjoy. Jan Papirmeister, Founder and Executive Director, brings her kindness, heart and energy to this mission every day. The Board of Directors, Jan and a host of partners work diligently to bring healing art to patients and their families in Bethesda, MD and the DC area hospitals.
The good news is YAFH is growing fast. They have momentum. They have been awarded grants. They have received awards for their accomplishments. More teachers, youth and hospitals want to join in this exciting mission. How does a small fast growing nonprofit manage to stay strong and remain sustainable?
[Read more…]
In the ideal world, every person who takes the Gallup Strengths Finder assessment would receive 4-5 hours of coaching to analyze and leverage his/her results. A series of coaching session helps people to truly notice, appreciate and apply their talents. It’s the first step in heading in the right direction. It also helps to discover what I call “strengths wisdom”. [Read more…]
Four thousand people a day, log on to the Gallup Strengths Center to take a 35 minute, 120 question online assessment to get a “strengths finder report”. The report names an individual’s talents, preferences, knowledge, skills and strengths. Upon receiving the report, people often have a burst of energy and enthusiasm. However, that energy often dissipates because people don’t know what to do with the results. [Read more…]
What words do you think of when you hear the word Ecology? Nature? Water? Animals? Soil? Plants? Air? Ecology is not just one of these elements, it is rather the interconnection between all these elements. An ecological system is a brilliantly woven tapestry of thriving elements. It is a system that grows stronger by inter-connections.
Ecology is by its very nature is so big and comprehensive that it is almost impossible to define. Yet, ultimately, ecology is about three things: balance, strength and tightly woven interdependencies.
Ecology also reveals the secret to thriving organizations, teams and leaders. We can turn to hundreds of books on leadership and teams, journals and courses to unlock the secret to thriving employees and organizations. Or, we can turn to the most time tested systems in the world, our natural systems. Our ecological systems are the greatest teacher we have on how to create, support, and sustain balanced and strong organizational systems. I call this learning from ecological systems the Ecology of Strengths.
[Read more…]
Evidently, Hamilton, the new musical, is the hardest ticket to get on Broadway. It’s been called a once-in-a generation experience. Lin Manuel Miranda — the composer, lyricist and lead of the show recently told the story of how Hamilton came to be on National Public Radio. Miranda shared how his love of hip-hop and an invitation from President Obama led to the creation of this hot new musical. Miranda also discusses the challenges of telling a story of slavery, power, and influence. He reveals how he grappled with asking a very diverse cast to play slaveholders. He comments “empathy only gets you so far when you are dealing with a system of brutality.”
This quote struck me because there have been so many conversations about empathy in the press lately. Brene Brown’s video on Empathy has over a half a million views. People are talking about Empathy. Even Harvard Business Review did a piece on empathy. I often work with leaders who have “Empathy” as one of their top five strengths in the Gallup Strengths Finder tool and they strategize how to leverage empathy as a leadership quality.
Do you have things on your “to-Do” list that you keep avoiding? I find that tasks that require laser like focus for repetitive tasks are particularly challenging for me. Last week, I was crawling through the task of loading an online course onto a website. It required laser focus and I found I was depleted by the repetition. I was making very slow progress.
I decided to play to my strengths to get this task of loading a course online completed. In the Strengths Finder world there is one strength called focus. People who have this strength are incredibly talented at focusing in on one task. It is not one of my strengths. Yet, one of my strengths is strategic thinking. I do some of my best thinking when I create space and time to think big. I often find that I do this best when I am moving.
Thus the Strengths Biathlon. [Read more…]
Who knew we’d have a whole new genre of research on leadership and the importance of sleep! Arianna Huffington has a new book coming out titled The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time. This follow her TedTalk on how to succeed by getting more sleep. In addition, McKinsey and Company posted a piece on the organizational cost of insufficient sleep. And, Harvard Business Review has an article on the link between effective leadership and sleep.
Their collective message is that there is a national trend of leaders convincing themselves that they don’t need that much sleep. Almost 46% of leaders say that lack of sleep does not have an impact on their performance. Yet four of ten report that they do not get enough sleep at least 3 nights a week. Furthermore, there is credible research on how attention, concentration, creativity, emotional reactions, seeking different perspectives and decision making is impacted by lack of sleep. [Read more…]
We’ve all been there… a “to do” list that is so long you don’t know where to start. Every day more things are added and some things come flying at you as “URGENT!” In my work, I am noticing more and more teams struggling with how to prioritize because there is growing culture of what I refer to as the “tyranny of the urgency”.
I remember asking my boss once, “Help me to understand what is the most urgent and important thing to work on”. His response was…”It’s all urgent and import.” My feeling is it can’t all be urgent and important. We need tools for teams and leaders to decide what is most urgent and important or we will get washed under in a giant wave of tasks. When we get hit by too many of these waves efficiency and morale often decline. [Read more…]
Jennifer Deal and Alec Levenson report startling and compelling research on trust and Millennials in their new book, “What Millennials Want from Work”. In this global research they collated data from of over 25,000 Millennials and 29,000 other generations on millennials and work.
In their section on trust, they report that only “38% of Millennials trust their boss a lot and only 33% say they trust the people they work with a lot. “ My reaction is….What is the root cause of this lack of trust? And how do we respond to a generation that is reluctant to trust? [Read more…]
