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The More AI Expands, the More Relationships Matter
Every week, there are new headlines about how AI is changing how we work and find jobs. But in all of this discussion about AI, there is an important truth that rarely gets highlighted. The more AI infiltrates our lives and work, the more important our human...
How to Make a Bad Performance Appraisal Process Work
The performance appraisal process is broken. While positioned as a tool to manage performance, it’s primarily designed to create documentation to justify both compensation and disciplinary decisions. If you’re in a position to fix this process for your organization,...
Feeling stretched thin? Try this to recharge.
I’m in my band dad era. I saw that phrase on a t-shirt recently and thought, “I need that shirt.” My two youngest kids are both in varsity marching band. That might sound fun (and it is), but for our family, it also means long hours and a lot of commitment each fall....
The Real Work of Being Authentic
In 2012, Joe Gerstandt and I published Social Gravity: Harnessing the Natural Laws of Relationships. In it, we shared six “laws” for building meaningful relationships. The one that always got the strongest reaction was: Always be authentic. We argued that authenticity...
Performance Management is Still Broken (and How to Finally Fix It)
My war against performance appraisals started the first time I encountered them. I vividly remember how silly and unjust it felt. Learning that my peers had been complaining about me, but my boss chose to hold that feedback until now. Surprise! You thought you were...
Your biggest challenge is probably the one you’re avoiding
“The obstacle is the way.” This quote, often attributed to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, is a core tenet of stoicism. It points to an annoying and inevitable truth. What we want most is usually found on the other side of something we would rather avoid. It...
What to Do When Feedback Hurts: 3 Smart Ways to Respond
Recently, my teenage daughter got hit with some feedback she didn't love. It was the kind of feedback that holds up a mirror and reflects back something you didn't intend— and probably didn't want to see. Her response? First, hurt. Then defensiveness. And finally,...
How to Listen Better: 4 Powerful Tips to Improve Workplace Communication
Leadership isn’t just about speaking, it’s about listening. And not just hearing words, but truly understanding, engaging, and responding in a way that fosters trust and connection. In today’s workplaces, where...
The Power of Check-Ins: 5 Essential Questions Every Leader Should Ask
Great leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about asking the right questions. If you want to build a high-performing, engaged team, the way you check in with your people matters. Check-ins aren’t just...
4 Easy Ways to Make Performance Reviews Stress-Free and Productive
Few things trigger more angst for less payoff than the annual performance review process. Just the thought of it is enough to send a lot of people into panic mode–employees, managers, and HR alike. I’m not suggesting that the review process is entirely without merit,...
Discover the Secret to Shaping BeTTER Manager BehavioR
What’s your go-to cure for the hiccups? Growing up, my family was convinced that the best cure was a good “scare.” I can still remember my parents (and grandparents) trying to startle me out of a case of hiccups. I don’t know if this actually works, but I...
Why Connection Is Key to a Fulfilling Life
Connection, or more specifically, the lack of connection, has been a topic of concern for nearly everyone I've met with lately. How do we keep remote employees feeling connected? When we bring people together in the office, how do we encourage them to actually connect...
3 Steps to Build Stronger Connections in Relationships Through Stories
How Your Stories Bring You Closer to Loved Ones How Sharing Stories Builds Trust in Relationships Stories are powerful. They entertain us. They help us communicate. They invite us to connect with others. But the stories we tell ourselves as we try to make...
People are Disconnecting. Could Work reconnect us?
A few weeks ago, I read an article in The Atlantic titled "Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out" and I can't stop thinking about it. (FYI: The article requires a subscription to read it, unfortunately.) The gist of the article is that there is overwhelming...
4 Tips to Clean Up the Mess of Hybrid Work
Change can be messy. And the change to hybrid schedules has proven to be pretty messy for a lot of organizations. Many of the leaders I’m speaking with are struggling to make sense of this messiness. In one case, a leader was puzzled over why less than half of his...
Why Hybrid Work Policies are a BAD Idea
Despite what we’d all hoped would unfold this year, we are nowhere near the emergence of a “new normal” regarding where and how we work. Don’t believe me? All you have to do is a quick Google search to discover that there are just as many articles espousing the “death...
4 Burnout Lesson I Wish I’d Known Sooner
I’ve been struggling for the past few months. Honestly, I’ve probably been struggling for much longer than that. I just finally became aware of how bad burnout was recently. To start with, I was exhausted all the time. Regardless of how much I slept, I never seemed to...
Is it time to abandon the idea of “culture” at work?
As companies are requiring employees back into the office, one of the most common reasons cited is culture. CEO’s will argue that their culture requires being together in the office. Others suggest that remote work is degrading or ruining their culture. The first...
4 STEPS On How to Have Effective Check-in Conversations
It was my birthday and I was craving some time with my kids. In a brazen attempt to pry my kids away from their technology, I offered a trip to Dairy Queen for some ice cream. My hope was, once they were a captive audience in the car, we’d be able to chat a bit. But...
What Baggage are you Carrying into the new year?
Like so many others, I decided to take some time off between Christmas and New Years. My goal was to largely put work aside to rest up, spend time with my family, and reconnect with some friends. The first few days went pretty well due to all of the great...
Performance Management Isn’t Only About Results
I recently finished binge-watching the FX show, Welcome to Wrexham. It’s a documentary made about the team and community surrounding a Welsh Football (Soccer, for us Americans) Club that was purchased by two Hollywood stars, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in 2019....
Why we need to kill the dress code
Perhaps the simplest and most potent management advice I have to offer is this. Treat people like responsible adults. Sadly, the legacy of traditional management practices we inherited doesn't always do this. Case in point: THE dress code....
How to Make Work Suck Less
My recent video about Quiet Quitting generated a lot of reaction. Reading through the comments, I was reminded of a sad reality. Work still sucks for a lot of people. If you look at any article or video online about...
Why You Should Ask Employees What Would Make Them Quit
It’s the conversations we are most afraid of that are the most important to have. This is true in all areas of our lives. And it’s particularly true at work right now. As you worry about retention and losing our best...
Quiet Quitting is NOT the Problem
Is it just me or does it seem like references to “quiet quitting” are everywhere all of a sudden? Thanks, TikTok. Last year, it was people posting their resignations to TikTok (also known as “for real quitting''). Now...
How to Fix Employee Performance Issues without Breaking the Employee
One of the biggest mistakes I see from managers and organizations is how they address performance issues with employees. They treat the performance issue as if it's some flaw in the employee to be fixed. Or worse, like...
Performance Is Always First
As I was scrolling through LinkedIn this week, I stumbled across this post from the prolific Adam Grant. The post was promoting an interview he had done with Prince Harry about mental health at work. Given the amount of writing and speaking I do about well-being...