Three Ideas for Celebrating the Holiday Season
If I’m being honest, there isn’t much to celebrate on the West Coast of Canada these days. The pandemic/endemic is here, restrictions are being implemented, and lockdowns are looming. I feel for everyone who is enthusiastically looking forward to social…
Where We Work Should Be Beautiful
When I was in Italy as a member of Vancity’s Co-operative Study Tour we visited a worker co-op called Kilowatt and I fell in love with the space and its people. The organization focuses on consulting, communication and education that…
Gratitude
Expressing gratitude reduces stress, elevates wellbeing, and enhances relationships. Our family practices gratitude pretty much every night at the dinner table (we like the “star and a wish” method). Every day I take stock of good things that happened and…
Returning to the Office Will Be Weird
As I wiped down my chair and a nearby desk that I may or may not have touched with various cleaning supplies, I looked up at my colleague, Deanna, and said “okay…returning to the office will be weird for everyone.”…
Five Ways to Build a Hybrid Mindset
The pandemic has changed work forever. Organizations around the world are adopting hybrid work practices, advancing “work from anywhere” policies, or asking employees to return to the office full-time and, consequently, losing their workforce. We need to reimagine everything from…
Three Ways to Write Your Professional Journal
Writing makes your life better. Fast Company’s Drake Baer has his reasons for why writing cultivates knowledge, wisdom and a powerful personal narrative. For me, writing is the thing that slows down my thinking, sorts out my ideas and goals,…
Self-Assessment
Self-awareness, which means deeply knowing your values, abilities, style, areas to grow, and impact on others, is a critical capability for work life. Seeing ourselves clearly enhances learning, improves decision making, enables stronger relationships, and makes communication more effective. We…
Aspirational Self-Awareness
“You are the way that others see you” is, according to the Gikomba Market vendor who sold me a sarong in 2006, a Maasai proverb. When we seek to understand how others perceive our actions and absorb the impact of…
Kindness
Kindness is in all of us. We need more of it in the world today. When I observe fans at sporting events combined social trolls spewing garbage content at everyone from public health officials to women of colour who have…
What a Woodpecker Taught Me About Rethinking Work Life
Recently, I learned a lot about what it means to think again. First, I read Adam Grant’s latest book, Think Again, and it presented compelling arguments for thinking like a scientist. Second, I engaged in a fiasco of problem solving…