Eight Professional Lessons from the Movie Chef
Last week I re-watched Chef – written, directed and starring Jon Favreau – on Netflix. The film is about Carl Casper, the head chef at a high-end Los Angeles restaurant who loses his cool, loses his job, loses a lot…
Three Things That Make Cooperatives Different
The cooperative business model advances economic, social, and environmental progress and demonstrates versatility and resilient. Even though nearly two billion people around the world are members and/or directly impacted by cooperative enterprises across virtually every sector, the value of the…
Six Coaching Streams that Your Organization Needs
Coaching unlocks potential in people and, when applied effectively at scale in an organization, across communities. Not all managers are naturally great coaches (though they can learn) and not every organization is setup to achieve the desired results from investments…
10 Better Descriptions than End-User
“End-user” is a common term that’s used for everything from technical projects to marketing campaigns. It’s a term that just feels weird and, frankly, misused to me. Across North America, communities are being devastated by the injuries and fatalities of…
21 Ways to Build a Better Normal in 2021
2020 is almost over. It’s been a year. The pandemic has ravaged and disrupted the planet. Calls for racial and social justice, which has always been present in our communities, have gained prominence. Our planet is still burning. Personally, my…
Three Ways to Evaluate Your Resilience in 2020
Well, it’s been a year. As 2020 winds down, many of us are united in our view that this year can go straight to hell. The global pandemic has taken nearly two million lives and disrupted countless others with unemployment,…
Nine Books that Enhanced My Range
Generalists will lead the future of work (it’s already starting). According to pioneers of the movement, Kenneth Mikkelsen and Richard Martin, the generalist “brings together diverse people, synthesizing ideas and practices, addressing the big issues that confront us in order…
How to have Better Year End Conversations
Performance reviews and year end conversations are ramping up around the world, which makes a lot of us uneasy because the experience can be clunky (HR systems aren’t slick like apps), emotional (money and personal identity are on the line!),…
10 Better Things to Say than “Be a Man”
“Be a Man”. We’ve heard the phrase jabbed at a dude caught in a circle of dudes (sometimes women are there, too) who are using peer pressure tactics. Or it’s a classic movie line aimed at motivating male protagonists to…
12 Ways to Positively Disrupt Your Workplace
Whether you work somewhere with nine or 9,000 employees, we’ve all been frustrated by organizations experiencing the malaise of average. When people stay in the same role or team for too long, get too comfortable with “the way things are”,…