Not quite out of office
December 1, 2021
We know that rest is transformative. We can point to periods of downtime in our lives as the places when we got to clarity. Where we had space. Space to breathe, and to take stock.
Archives
The cost of doing business
November 17, 2021
Every organization has costs, but there’s a lot of power in how they’re labelled. The labels people use bake in assumptions about whether those costs are internal or external. They tell you who we think should pay those costs.
Math you will actually use
November 3, 2021
None of the tools work until you let this one in. Here it is. You can’t fight math.
The masks are off and the masks are off
October 20, 2021
We’re in the midst of a massive renegotiation of the rules of work. And the central focus of that negotiation isn’t back to office plans, or international salary parity, or vaccine mandates. It’s power.
You can’t seize the moment with your hands full
October 6, 2021
Today, our second book comes out. It’s an ender chest. It is a full year of these newsletters, from the first lockdown to the anniversary of those lockdowns. It is a place to put down some of what the past 18 months have felt like.
That rattling sound is your Q4
September 22, 2021
There’s an adage in business that any decision is better than no decision. Because even if you’re wrong, you can always make a different decision further down the road.
Just say hybrid because nobody knows
September 8, 2021
Can we get to a place where we start to reimagine the thing? Whatever the thing is that you miss, you can reinvent it without starting from zero. Pay attention to the ache of the thing that’s missing. What was important about it?
Long on empathy and short on patience
August 25, 2021
We told leaders to be empathetic. We told them to be understanding. And they are doing that. They are phenomenal about understanding the conditions for underperformance in their teams. But it’s not working…They are patient to a fault.
You can’t live in the airport
August 11, 2021
Now’s a bad time to lean on your employee’s sense of loyalty, but a good time to lean on their sense of possibility. New opportunity, high-quality networking, exposure to different ideas. That’s what people in a liminal space can actually engage with.
Have you noticed everyone’s on their worst behaviour?
July 28, 2021
People who are frustrated. Sharp. Daring someone to call them on it and spoiling for a fight. If you’re managing a group of people, you see it in slack messages. The passive aggressive ones. But also the aggressive aggressive ones.
Your home office is not a scent-free workplace
July 14, 2021
Every company is a community that needs rules. And, as bosses, making the rules of engagement clear is our job. That’s true whether your company is remote, in-office, or a mix of the two.
There’s no ‘I’ in Burnout
June 30, 2021
We hear from managers who want strategies for dealing with the burnt out folks on their teams. Doing the equivalent of the trolley problem every time a new project pops up. How do you give someone new work even as they’re drowning under the existing work?
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