Empathy is Harder than Math
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It involves perceiving and connecting with their emotions, fostering understanding, and often responding with compassion and support. Mathematics is the language of patterns and relationships in the world. It’s…
Five Professional Lessons from Captain America: Civil War
Last Friday night Kurt and I saw Captain America: Civil War. The summer’s hottest movie taught us a lot about international diplomacy, teamwork, spandex, friendship, and ourselves, too. Here are five professional lessons from Captain America: Civil War that you can…
Four Lessons in Interdependency from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In their excellent book, Laziness Does Not Exist, Dr. Devon Price argues that the myth of the heroes journey highlights how individualistic problem-solving and world/galaxy-saving is wrongly elevated in pop culture. While I take issue with some of Price’s examples (the…
Six Professional Game Changers from Improv
I’m part of a team that is delivering a big piece of work using agile methodology, which I’ve written about before. With our project moving and changing so quickly we find ourselves reacting to new circumstances and having to improvise…
A Humble Running Haiku
Lake Union seawall People passing everywhere Oh look, a scooter… – A haiku about humble running by John Horn
Five Ways to Build Psychological Safety on Your Team
I have an awesome colleague named Lindsay and we trust each other. Something that helped us get to where we are is psychological safety. One of the ways that I know such a thing exists is because Lindsay felt comfortable…
Bring Doughnut Economics to Your Community
In 2018, Oxford Economist Kate Raworth introduced the world to a different sort of doughnut. This doughnut is a visual representation of a sustainable economic system that balances the needs of people and the planet. The inner ring represents the…
Nervited
When humans feel the combination of nervousness and excitement we are nervited. Our team was feeling nervited last week because we delivered a conference for 600 employees that blended inspirational speakers, peer-learning, good food, and digital creativity. We felt nervous…
Five Tips for Navigating Worklife Complexity
Worklife is complex. Whether we are making sense of hybrid work and its impact on the employee experience, raising a family, or changing career paths, every day we make decisions amidst complexity. Recognizing this reality and the impact that it…
Five Ways to be a Human Being at Work
Work puts too much emphasis on process, transactions, technology, outcomes, outputs, and the bottom line. Even though we work with people we really like and respect, we often treat our colleagues differently on the job than we do our friends….