Five Career Development Trends Impacting Organizations
I wrote this article in January, 2020 (pre-pandemic, but just barely). What has changed? What's stayed the same? How do these career development trends hold up? John Also, register for Cannexus23 today! -- Career Development Trends Next week career practitioners and...
Strategy
The best strategies are democratic. When it is designed and decided by executives and consultants a strategy's potential is limited. When there is no process, but an unequivocally and monomaniacally clear purpose, strategies emerge from everywhere - work folks are...
Five Lessons from Camping Adventures for Your Worklife
The Horn Family had an awesome summer. Part of what made it great were three weeklong camping trips with family and friends in some of the most beautiful spots that the West Coast (possibly the world) has to offer. At our most boisterous and ridiculous, our community...
Five Lessons about Learning from Home Renovations
Last weekend my family moved into our new home, which needs many minor renovations. Things like re-sealing toilets, gutter cleaning and caulking, fence-repair, dimmer-switch-installing, and many similar tasks me uncomfortable because I suck at them. A recent HBR...
Three Ways to Make Someone’s Day
Great leaders – the ones who can really get the best out of people – understand the importance of working with folks holistically. It’s essential to treat people as human beings, not just employees, because human beings get pushed on the subway, dumped by a jerk,...
Five Lessons in Awesomeness from Tom Petty
My favourite podcast is called Stop Podcasting Yourself and a few months ago its hosts Dave Shumka and Graham Clark talked about Running Down a Dream, the documentary about Tom Petty that you can find on Netflix. I love Tom Petty and I think that Dave and Graham are...
Six Strategies for Solving Big Problems
In our professional lives, we’re frequently confronted with difficult decisions whose scope and complexity can be overwhelming. Big problems can place you in organizational paralysis. Here are six strategies for breaking out of that stasis to solve big problems...
Three Professional Lessons from my June Sports Soccer Tournament
Earlier this month, I travelled with soccer players from the Vancouver Street Soccer League to Alert Bay to compete in the Aboriginal soccer tournament called June Sports. To read more about this tournament, you can check out this excellent article in the Guardian...
Three Reasons Why You Should Take Vacation Right Now
My wife just forwarded me an email from her organization’s Human Resources department that reads, “Don’t forget to take your vacation!” You’d think that things like this don’t require reminders, but Canadians aren’t great at having or taking vacation days. As a...
Five Ways that Cycling to Work Enhances Wellbeing
The June 2016 issue of BC Business is chock full of statistics and stories about commuting – Frances Bula argues that big investments in transit, bike lanes and even non-driving Millennials aren’t doing much to de-throne the car as commuters’ choice. I am a...
Five professional lessons from Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is an American neo-noir film chock full of crime, drugs, twisting, and jiving. It’s hip, happening and, while it dates back to 1994, there are plenty of professional lessons scattered between Vincent Vega’s (freaky) stabbing of...
Three Negotiation Tactics I Learned from Toddlers
My son is two years old and he is fast becoming a competent negotiator. Well, not really. But he does try really hard, his logic is pretty funny, and kids are adorable and we can learn a lot from them. Every day I negotiate peoples’ work plans, budgets, partnerships,...
Lessons from My Frienaissance
Last week, my friend Godfrey and I rode our bicycles Seattle over the course of three days. It was a whirlwind trip that tested our physical resolve and, at times, problem solving abilities. After two flat tires, countless sports beans, over 300 kilometers of scenic...