Today is Thank Your Mentor Day, which is part of National Mentoring Month. Who knew? Over the years I’ve had LOTS of fantastic mentors, and this is a perfect time to give them a well-deserved shout-out. The list below represents my former work team leaders, company executives, peers and fellow entrepreneurs. Interestingly, none of them…
Workplace Dynamics
The Ambiguity Factor
When was the last time you heard an employee say “Wow, the implementation of that new program (system/process/idea) was smooth!” My guess is you’ve rarely (perhaps never?) heard that. There are oodles of reasons why the launch of a new system goes awry— competing values, unclear objectives, unrealistic deadlines, budget constraints and so on. Here’s…
Praising Mastery
I’m reading the book The Power of Respect by Deborah Norville. She cites a very interesting study from the journal Motivation and Emotion. In this study, a group of researchers from Reed College in Oregon studied whether one form of praise was more effective than another. The researchers used two different types of praise: “mastery”,…
Not Everyone’s a Critic
Not everyone’s a critic, but some days it sure feels like it. Case in point: in my community this year some very enterprising philanthropists organized a fantastic event called ArtPrize. The event opened September 23, 2009. In essence, it’s an art competition with an “open source” feel. Artists from anywhere in the world are eligible…
The Language of Frailty
Words fascinate me. Walking into a book store jazzes me the way some people invest emotionally in sports or music. From my first published work at age 13 (op-ed piece in our local newspaper) to being a Spanish major in college, to conducting Communications Skills workshops for employees, language has always been more than just…