Leadership Courage
Leadership courage is the ability to do the right thing even when it’s hard—which, let’s be honest, is basically always. If leadership were easy, we’d just let algorithms handle it. For example. Let’s say we know a director who notices…
Learning is a Non-Discretionary Function
Overseeing upskilling, leadership development, and career growth at a learning organization has eliminated a very specific occupational hazard of mine: involuntary eye-twitching during budget season. It still happens every time I hear or read the phrase “learning is discretionary spending”,…
Three Leadership Agility Lessons from Canada Basketball’s Superclinic
A few weekends ago I joined players, coaches, and referees from across the Greater Victoria Area at a “basketball superclinic” that was delivered by Canada Basketball’s Mike Mackay. The coaches spent the morning learning about a practice we would be…
Five Co-operative Solutions to Inter-Generational Strife
According to folks like Dr. Christopher Mackie, governments are shortchanging people under 45 by spending an unequal amount on seniors. Unsurprisingly, Susan Eng of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) believes that such a position amounts to nothing short…
Three Examples of Cooperative Dystopia in the “Alien” Universe
Analyzing and sharing what popular culture can teach us about career development, leadership, and the cooperative enterprise model is something we do really well on this website. My contention is that the Alien universe is probably a cooperative dystopia from…
Evaluating Costs
Leaders are evaluating costs and making decisions pretty much every day. Here is a list of all the costs (more or less) that you should consider when making decisions. Evaluating costs Every choice we make incurs and activates costs. This…
How to Break Toxic Culture at Work
Between April and September 2021, more than 24 million American employees left their jobs, which was a record. More than half of Canadian employees would rather quit their job than return to the office full-time. As the Great Resignation rolls…
Best Practices for Organizing Conferences Within Organizations
Internal conferences foster human connection and learning in hybrid work environments. They encourage team alignment with organizational goals and promote intrapreneurism. Successful conferences require careful planning, collaboration, and alignment of personal and organizational priorities. Integrating fun elements enhances learning, creating engaged and innovative teams that drive overall success.
The Community Building Potential of … Malls?!
There we were, skipping and laughing ironically through Kitchener-Waterloo’s largest mall. My grad school roommate and current awesome friend, Jim, and I were hilariously lampooning the community building potential of malls by drawing a clear counterpoint to how they are…
Five Characteristics of the New Economy
Building the next economy will take a movement. Community builders, educators, economists, urbanists, policymakers, business leaders, cooperators, activists, parents, kids, neighbours, and even a few celebrities must unite to build a better normal through societal recovery. Something that we are…