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In 2025, Break Routine and Unleash Creativity to Fuel Innovation

Innovation is the lifeblood of success.

Organizations that can adapt, embrace change, and foster creativity are poised to thrive. Yet, amidst the demands of day-to-day operations, many organizations are stuck in a routine cycle, clinging to familiar practices and struggling to break free from the shackles of repetition.

So, why do some leaders, despite voicing support for innovation, shy away from it in practice?

This is not limited to the entry-level or the boardroom, but it often strikes hardest in mid-level management. These managers are the bridge between the strategic vision of top leadership and the execution of plans on the front lines. They are entrusted with maintaining the status quo and driving innovation and improvement.

 

Let’s take Maya.

She’s a mid-level manager who repeatedly expressed her desire to see “out-of-the-box” thinking from her team to get faster, higher-quality service. She and the team’s schedules are filled with weekly back-to-back meetings, leaving no time to nurture or evaluate creative ideas. The one brainstorming session she organized last month was a rushed 30-minute virtual call on a Friday amidst an already hectic day interspersed with urgent emails and calls.

The result?

You guessed it: ideas were safe, familiar, and anything but innovative.

 

The Battle Against Repetition

Leaders like Maya, often unknowingly, lead teams that become world champions of acting like we did yesterday.

In the realm of work, this means adhering to practices because “that’s how it’s always been done.” It means churning out reports in the same format, holding meetings without clear agendas, and avoiding any method or idea that deviates from the norm. There’s an implicit safety in repetition; it’s familiar, predictable, and rarely questioned.

But here lies the paradox: by seeking refuge in the known, we shut out the innovative and the new, stunting potential growth.

 

Understanding Reluctance Towards Creativity

So, why do some leaders, despite voicing support for innovation, shy away from it in practice?

  • Risk-Aversion: Creative ideas are, by nature, untested, which makes them risky. Many leaders fear the repercussions of a novel idea failing, especially in front of senior leaders or the team.
  • Time Constraints: True creativity isn’t instant. It requires time for thought, discussion, and even disagreement. The daily hustle, especially for mid-level managers who must manage multiple tasks and do their work, makes it challenging to carve out this space, particularly when the pressures of your day-to-day life tell you that “you don’t have time for this.”
  • Look For Base Hits Instead of Home Runs: Some might believe creativity is only about ‘big ideas’ and grand innovations. They overlook the more minor, incremental changes (sometimes called ‘little c’ creativity) that can lead to substantial long-term benefits.
  • Resisting Change: It’s human nature to resist change, especially when current systems seem to be working “good enough.

 Read about Resisting Change

Questions to Guide Creative Thought

For managers looking to harness the power of creativity within their teams, reflecting on these guiding questions can be transformative:

  • Re-Visit Assumptions: “Why do we do it this way?” Challenge the status quo. Reassess ingrained practices to see if they still serve your team’s goals.
  • Establish the End Goal: “What are we ultimately trying to accomplish?” Clarify the endgame. Understand the core objectives to ensure that innovation aligns with the bigger picture. You can use a tactic like the “5 Whys” to get at the source of the issue and ensure you’re solving the right problem.

Read about the ‘5 Whys’

  • Brainstorm: “What do we think can solve this?” This is not the time for negativity (that comes later). Encourage an open platform for ideas where No’s, But’s, or “We already tried that” are momentarily set aside.
  • Combine Ideas: Once ideas are on the table, look for intersections where combining them could lead to more effective outcomes. This is sometimes known as looking for the “1+1=3” ideas.
  • Prevent Overthinking: “What if we only had 30 days? What if this were easy?” Imposing constraints can often lead to more ingenious solutions.
  • Identify Hurdles: “What would prevent this from happening? What could go wrong?” Recognizing challenges upfront, potentially through Red Team exercises and frame changes, allows for better planning and resource allocation.
  • Strategizing Solutions: “How can we overcome these barriers? What resources are needed?” Convert challenges into actionable steps.
  • Action and Commitment: “Who is doing what, and by when? How will we know we’ve succeeded?” Define responsibilities and success metrics to track progress through written action plans.

Embracing creativity isn’t about discarding everything you know. It’s about allowing space for new possibilities.

For mid-level managers like Maya, the challenges are twofold: finding time amid the chaos and having the courage to venture into the unknown.

To all such leaders: Take a step today. Dedicate just an hour this week, free from distractions, to brainstorm with your team. Utilize the guiding questions above.

Listen, truly listen to their ideas.

You may find the seed of the following significant innovation for your organization in that hour.

Lessons From The Buddha … Ask ‘Why’ 5 Times

The Buddha’s Upajjhatthana Sutta discourse explains that contemplating five facts can help weaken or overcome conceit, lust, and irresponsibility. The discourse suggests that contemplating these facts can help cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.

We can take the lesson of the five facts from spiritual quests and apply it to our day-to-day leadership and management activities.  Quite frankly, we spend a lot of our day solving problems. So, turn the five Facts into the five Whys.

The 5 Whys technique is a problem-solving method that involves repeatedly asking “why” to uncover the root cause of a problem. The steps for using the 5 Whys technique are: 

Start with a description of the problem 

Ask “why” and provide a clear and concise answer 

Repeat the process until you reach the root cause of the problem 

The 5 Whys technique is best suited for simple or moderately difficult problems. It can be used in troubleshooting, problem-solving, and quality-improvement initiatives

What is 5 Whys Problem Solving?

The 5 Whys Problem-Solving technique is a simple process for solving any problem. It involves repeatedly asking the question “Why” (five times is a good rule of thumb) to peel away the layers of symptoms that can lead to the root cause of a problem. This strategy relates to the principle of systematic problem-solving.

Proper use of the technique is to help identify the root cause of a problem. (A root cause is the most basic reason that, if eliminated, would prevent recurrence.) Then, to provide a framework for a team to work through more complex problems.

Make sure that you avoid using the 5 Whys to assign blame  for the problem or to turn it into a tedious, desk-intensive project

Read more about silence and asking questions

How?

Write down the specific problem. Writing about the issue helps you formalize it and describe it completely, allowing the team to focus on the same problem. Always describe the current condition and use data whenever possible.

 For example, overall customer complaints are up by 50%.

Ask why the problem occurs and write the answer below the problem.

If the answer doesn’t identify the root cause of the problem you wrote in step 1, ask why again and write that answer down. Repeat step 3 until the team agrees on the root cause of the problem identified.

For Example:

Create a Problem Statement: IE Your company could not get the customer’s product request on time.

1st Why: Why were you unable to produce the product on time? Because the equipment failed.

2nd Why: Why did the equipment fail? Because the circuit board burned out.

3rd Why: Why did the circuit board burn out? Because it overheated.

4th Why: Why did it overheat? Because the air filter wasn’t changed.

5th Why: Why wasn’t the filter changed? Because there was no afternoon maintenance shift scheduled to change it.

Et Voila

Inner peace is found through enlightenment.

Now, go down to the shop floor and enlighten your maintenance team.

How? Read about the 4 Fs of addressing concerns with your boss, or anyone: The 4 F’s (And @#$% isn’t one) of dealing with a boss with low EI

Employee Holiday Recognition Can Be Worse Than Doing Nothing

Recognizing and rewarding hard work in the construction industry is crucial for maintaining employee morale and productivity.

The employee engagement firm Whistle had a client who faced a significant challenge in its rewards program. In 2023, the client spent $2 million on Starbucks and Grubhub gift cards for employees and subcontractors. However, a detailed analysis by Whistle Rewards revealed a horrifying inefficiency: only $880,000 of these gift cards were ever redeemed.

This meant that $1,120,000 of the firm’s reward budget was essentially wasted. (https://www.wewhistle.com/the-ugly-truth-about-gift-cards/)

Employee Rewards: Frequency matters more

Which is more effective at employee engagement and retention: $25 once a month or three $5 recognitions per month? The surprising answer is three $5 recognitions. Recognitions are not compensation. They are acts of appreciation.

Maintaining a motivated and engaged workforce is critical to success in many industries where projects are fast-paced, labour-intensive, and often high-stakes. Traditionally, companies have relied on large, infrequent rewards—such as annual bonuses or quarterly recognition ceremonies—to show employee appreciation. However, frequent, lower-value rewards are more effective in driving sustained engagement and improving overall performance.

When companies wait to recognize staff, Whistle found they lost 5% of the “reinforcement impact” for each day of delay. For example, if an employee receives a reward two weeks after doing something unique, achieving the same impact as immediate recognition costs twice as much.

Read about Recognition & Corrective Action: How Do You Measure Up?

Frequent rewards also offer practical benefits; for example, when workers feel appreciated regularly, they are more likely to collaborate effectively and go the extra mile to ensure success.

Yet here we are at Christmas when most companies reward employees with dinners, gifts, and parties. If frequency is the long-term solution, how do we address the Holiday Season?

As a leader of people, I know that the holidays can be stressful. You are trying to finish the year strong while juggling time off and family commitments. That’s tough already, plus you also must find time to plan gifts and events to show your staff you appreciate their hard work this year.

If you search online for gift ideas, you might find some helpful guides but minefields of bad ideas. Take this one, for example: Their number one recommendation is a gift card. That is perhaps the worst and most impersonal holiday gift idea.

Many managers take the easy path and buy gift cards from Starbucks, Target, or Amazon. Some may make more effort and purchase gift cards to a local restaurant or shop.

While those are all nice, they don’t show that you know or appreciate your team members. Imagine how it would feel to get a coffee gift card if you don’t drink coffee. Or a Home Depot gift card, and you can barely change a lightbulb. Worse still, getting a gift card to a store with no locations nearby. If the team is virtual, the store might not even operate in their state.

The simple fact is that while a gift card might work for some of your employees, it will only be suitable for some of your team.

This opportunity to show gratitude and cement employee loyalty just became a signal to your team members that you don’t know them very well. They might spend the holiday break updating their resumes.

A better way to show you care is to give a memorable, practical gift that shows you know your team well. This gift should be something they will appreciate and remember long after the holiday break, something that will make their lives better or help them at work, and something unique to them, not just a one-size-fits-all gift.

Explore Tina Turner asked, “What’s love got to do with it?” – Is there a place for love in leadership?

Here are a few tips and ideas to make this season one that increases employee loyalty rather than erodes it:

1) Host a Holiday Gathering. Don’t underestimate the importance of hosting an end-of-year gathering for your team. A Christmas party is the perfect way to celebrate and acknowledge the year of hard work every employee has put in. It wraps up the year positively and motivates staff to achieve bigger and better achievements for the coming year! Recognition, rewards, and the chance for some fun will build staff engagement and loyalty and create a fantastic work culture.

As much as you want to be all about fun and positivity, there is no denying that work parties can be dangerous territory. The mixture of alcohol and the chance to drop some of those rigid office personas may come with some unwanted side effects. Before any festivities, make it clear to your team that the same standards of behaviour are expected at office functions as within the workplace.

Parties are not for everyone, so ensure there are no intended or unintended repercussions for not attending. And if any gifts or recognition are included in the event’s agenda, those not in attendance will be equally recognized at the first appropriate opportunity.

2) Try a virtual scavenger hunt. With virtual teams becoming the new norm, it is time to rethink the holiday party. One great way to show appreciation is to have a virtual scavenger hunt. The winners can be determined by who collects the most items before time runs out. Reward the winners, but make sure everyone gets something, even if they don’t answer all the questions correctly.

3) give people cash. While giving cash may feel impersonal, it can be done personally. Write each employee a note and tell them why you appreciate them. Be as specific as possible. Remind them of a great project they completed this year, or tell them about something you are excited to collaborate with them on next year.

4) Give the gift of time off. This is one of the best ways to show you care. Let your team know you appreciate all their hard work this year by giving them an extra day (or two) off. If you can’t swing an additional day, give them a half-day. Time is the one commodity we can never get more of, so this is always a cherished gift.

5) Give them a new skill. Everyone wants to improve at something. Maybe it’s related to their day job, but it’s even better if it is not. Maybe your employee wants to learn to code, speak French, be a podcaster, or play the piano. Please give them a subscription to Masterclass or Duolingo. Even better, give them paid time to use those subscriptions. Insecure employers might worry that training their employees will lead them to leave the company.

Read About The 7 Hidden Reasons Your Employees Leave You

Step up your game this holiday season and show your staff appreciation.

8 Steps To Improvement For Leaders And How To Develop Them

You’re the boss of a company. Lately, you’ve noticed that the work is being completed steadily, but you’re seeing a lack of enthusiasm from your team. What do you do? Your first thought might be to talk to your employees or to provide an incentive to boost morale. But your attention is better spent on developing leadership skills.

When faced with problems, true leaders look inward and focus on their abilities and shortcomings. There are always areas of improvement for leaders. When you ask yourself how to empower and inspire your team, you’ll naturally discover how to improve your leadership skills – because self-accountability is the foundation of outstanding leadership.

WHAT ARE LEADERSHIP SKILLS? 

A broad definition of leadership focuses on inspiring and organizing others to achieve a shared goal, typically on a schedule. Leadership skills are essential in any organization since they facilitate solid teams and the ability to complete tasks efficiently. Since this is an all-encompassing definition, your leadership skill set might differ from your colleague’s. You might demonstrate “soft” leadership skills like patience, empathy, and deep listening, while your colleague demonstrates strengths in risk-taking and decision-making. Whatever your natural forces are, developing leadership skills that align with those aptitudes is your ticket to greater effectiveness on the job.

WHY IS DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP SKILLS IMPORTANT?

Developing leadership skills is one of the most powerful moves you can make to transform your life. Leadership skills aren’t just for your career but can also improve your relationships. That’s because you’ll learn about communication as you learn to enhance leadership skills. This is called emotional intelligence, and whether you’re negotiating a big sales deal or negotiating chores with your spouse, it’s essential to influence others.

Developing leadership skills will also allow you to grow as a person. It’s an empowering process of harnessing your natural talents to inspire others. You’ll become more attuned to your strengths and weaknesses, which creates a self-awareness that you can apply to help you,

FINDING AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT FOR LEADERS

How do you know where to begin developing leadership skills? There are two steps to finding your leadership strengths and weaknesses.

STEP ONE: DETERMINE YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

Understanding your leadership style opens the door to harmonizing managerial skills with your true nature. Is your leadership approach democratic, visionary, coaching, affiliative, pacesetting or commanding? With a sense of where you fall in these categories, you’re better equipped to learn how to improve your leadership skills.

This is an excellent place to start because your leadership style has natural strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you have a democratic leadership style, you might have trouble handling crises. Visionary leaders can lack the ability to plan and follow through. Rather than accept these traits as fixed, develop a growth mindset and commit to working on them.

STEP TWO: HONESTLY ASSESS YOURSELF

When you know your weaknesses, you know how to start addressing them. But to pinpoint your weak spots, you must be honest in your self-examination. You may even want to ask others you can trust for their opinions on your leadership skills. Areas of improvement for leaders include:

  • Building empathy. Are you empathetic to others’ needs and feelings, or do you focus solely on your own? Putting others first is essential to building rapport and inspiring them to follow you.
  • Improving communication skills. Setting expectations and boundaries, providing clear goals and direction, and keeping employees in the loop are all part of creating and leading effective teams.
  • Making tough decisions. Tony says, “It is in your moments of decisions that your destiny is shaped.” Are you confident in your ability to make tough decisions, or are you plagued with self-doubt?
  • Eliminating micromanagement. One of the most common areas of improvement for leaders is their inability to let go of day-to-day tasks and micromanage.
  • Giving constructive feedback. It’s tempting for many leadership styles to focus only on the positive. But ignoring problems with your team won’t lead to business success.

HOW TO IMPROVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS

The following examples of leadership skills encapsulate outcomes that will help you become the most effective leader you can be.

  1. MAKE A PLAN

With a clear idea of your leadership strengths and weaknesses, you’re ready to take massive action by making a game plan aligned with your leadership style. If you identified a lack of confidence as a weakness, take steps to build self-confidence. If you identified poor communication as a weakness, start practicing effective communication techniques. With practice, you’ll embody examples of leadership skills to facilitate success in any endeavour.

  1. BE PASSIONATE

No one wants to seek counsel from someone who doesn’t care about the topic as much or more than they do. Passion is effort; passion is exertion. Passion is never giving up. Without it, you cease innovating and stagnate. When you display authentic enthusiasm and passion for the result, your people will keep working to achieve their goals.

Employees respond to those who are eager to help them learn and grow. Show passion for everything you do, including your efforts to develop leadership skills. Your desire will be apparent to your employees, and you will inspire them to improve their leadership skills.

  1. MODEL GREAT LEADERSHIP FOR OTHERS

What will leadership skills accomplish if they don’t inspire others to action? Not much. People respect someone who walks the walk. Research supports this statement; a core characteristic of transformational leaders is the ability to be a role model.

One of the most powerful examples of leadership skills is showing those around you exactly what you want them to do. Don’t waver on this. The most vital message you can send your team is to model the behaviours you want to see. “If they can do this,” your team will think, “So can I.”

  1. DON’T IGNORE YOUR STRENGTHS

Developing leadership skills often focuses on weaknesses, but don’t forget that you can also build your strengths. Understanding your shortcomings provides areas for improvement, but a strong knowledge of your innate gifts and abilities means you can put them to work for you right now.

Are there areas where you feel strong and can use those strengths differently? If you’re an excellent speaker, give presentations on challenging topics or join a public speaking group to improve your skills even more. Remember that the areas of improvement for leaders are endless, including your strengths.

  1. SET CONCRETE GOALS AND EXECUTE THEM

Even the most formidable leaders don’t come up with success out of nowhere. The grandest vision will never get off the ground if you don’t plot a path to get there. When developing leadership skills, invest time in clarifying and solidifying your goals. Formulating the right plan and setting it meaningfully gives you a map to follow, a methodology that will guide your business through the next week, month, year, and decade.

Once you achieve a particular goal, look toward another; constantly striving to meet that next benchmark will give you and your employees a sense of meaning and pride. As you progress on your goals, the examples of leadership skills you embody will speak volumes about your tenacity in realizing your business vision.

  1. ADMIT WHEN YOU FAIL AND MOVE ON

What are leadership skills – does being an effective leader mean never making mistakes? Even the most powerful, inspiring leaders make mistakes. When you recognize an error, admit it openly and take action to correct it. Be open about your failures; discuss them with yourself and with your team. Learn from them. Ask yourself and your team, “How can I avoid making this mistake in the future?”

Learning from your failures sends a powerful message to those around you. They understand that you will lead well even when you make a mistake. Those wondering how to improve leadership skills must learn to recognize successes and failures.

  1. INSPIRE OTHERS

If you’re complaining about every little detail and can only see the worst-case scenario at the end of every plan, you have little chance of inspiring others. Inspiration is an extension of belief; if you say, “No, that won’t work” or “Why bother?” to an employee, you’re signalling to them that you do not believe in their idea, in them or the business itself. Employees who feel you do not believe in them will not perform well, which can even create a domino effect of poor morale across the industry.

Instead, believe in others and their potential. Inspire them to work harder and reach greater heights. The secret to sustained growth is developing leadership skills throughout your business by generating and focusing positive energy, even when things aren’t going according to plan.

  1. FIND YOUR HIGHER PURPOSE

When developing leadership skills, you must know why you put time and effort into your chosen goal. What drives you? Your immediate response may be straightforward: a larger paycheck from a job well done or the prestige that comes from a higher rank.

But step back for a moment. Why do you want that larger paycheck? Is it so your family feels more secure? You may want to lead because you think you can help others by developing the products and services they need or because you see a place where you can cause positive change in your industry. These are all higher purposes, and by identifying your own, you can better operate as a confident, knowledgeable, and empowering leader for others.

As you hone your effectiveness as a leader in your life—whether in a professional or personal capacity—you’ll strengthen the efforts you put into your goals. Those around you will see the hard work and passion you bring each day, stirring them to work on developing leadership skills, too.

‘The Times They Are A’ Changin’ … 9 Questions To Check If Your Team Is Ready

There is a proverb that teaches that living in interesting times is both a curse and a blessing.

Most of my clients are facing change or a looming disruption, such as the advent of autonomous and electric trucks in the motor transportation industry.

We, the leaders of organizations, invest inordinate amounts of time in looking over the horizon, divining the future and developing strategic plans to protect and defend our organization or to prepare to exploit the disruption for growth and success.

Leaders and their organizations fail to prepare their people for disruption and whatever its impact is on them, their careers, their families, and their dinner plates.

watch the article where I explore why people are afraid of change

Because the leadership has spent all that time thinking, considering, and envisaging the change, they feel like they are already living in that new place where cats sleep with dogs, it only rains at night, and it is just enough to keep the golf course green.

Our employees only see the change in the area of old maps labelled ‘There Be Dragons.’

How prepared is your organization?

Click the image to download this 9-question assessment to see if you are ready to change ….

If you are not scoring 4s and 5s across the board, your big plans are at risk of being eaten by the dragon.

I have seen battles lost, money squandered, and opportunities frittered away because we have not brought our people along.

 

Culture & Connection Resource List

I have compiled a list of videos, articles, and other resources for you to explore related to the human elements of how we come together to deliver on our strategic direction. As you immerse yourself in these resources, we invite you to reflect on the following questions:
  • What stood out for you? What lingered in your mind?
  • Where were you intrigued by what you heard? Where did you feel most challenged?
  • How did these videos challenge or affirm the way we work at CRNA?
  • What key learning are you taking away from this?

The Speed of Trust

The following resources relate to trust – what it is, how it works and how it influences our collective impact.
  1. Success (Video) – Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author who explores the science of motivation, generosity, original thinking, and rethinking.
  2. The Speed of Trust (Video) – Stephen R Covey is an American writer, public speaker, and author of the books: The SPEED of Trust, Smart Trust, and Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash the Greatness in Others.
  3. Turf, Trust, Co-Creation & Collective Impact (Paper) – Liz Weaver is Co-CEO and Director Learning Centre at the Tamarack Liz is passionate about the power and potential of communities to impact complex issues.)

Safe Workspaces

To build and maintain trust, we must feel safe speaking up, making mistakes, and being authentic at work. These resources explore safe workplaces – what is and isn’t a safe space, how we create them and why they are essential for us to build belonging and be exceptional in our work.
  1. How Do You Create Psychological Safety at Work? Interview with Amy Edmondson (video). Amy Edmondson is a scholar of leadership, teaming, and organizational learning and is widely known for her work on Psychological Safety in
  2. Why Is Psychological Safety Important In An Organization? (4 Building Blocks) (video). Chad Littlefield is the co-founder and Chief Experience Officer at We and Me, (www.weand.me)—an organization whose mission is to make real connections easy. Forbes calls Chad a “global expert on asking questions that build trust and connection in teams.”
  3. WorkLife with Adam Grant: Is it Safe to Speak Up at Work? | TED Talk (podcast). Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author who explores the science of motivation, generosity, original thinking and Rather not listen to it? You can read the transcript here: Is it Safe to Speak Up at Work? (Transcript) | WorkLife | Podcasts | TED
 

Building Strong Teams

We have learned about trust and about building safe workspaces as foundational pieces for effective teams. When we have faith and safety, we can realize the true potential of each other and our teams. The following resources invite us to think about and reflect on how diversity builds team capability, what it means to feel belonging, and how we can take a strengths-based approach for ourselves and others.
  1. The Power of Diverse Thinking | Matthew Syed (video) – Matthew Syed is an author, speaker and champion table tennis athlete focusing on high performance and the power of a growth Check out this blog article from Farnam Street: The Stormtrooper Problem: Why Thought Diversity Makes Us Better – Farnam Street (paper).
  2. Belonging, A Critical Piece of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Carin Taylor | TEDxSonomaCounty (video) – Carin Taylor is the chief diversity officer at Workday and is a speaker, facilitator and coach in the area of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and
  3. Strengths How Employees’ Strengths Make Your Company Stronger (article) – Gallup is a global analytics and consulting company focusing on people’s work experience.

Conflict Is A Good Thing

We have a strategic direction we are headed in, and there will be times when we have differing views on HOW to get there. We must have a healthy perspective and practice conflict to move through these times. Safe, trusting and inclusive teams are spaces where conflict is welcome and a part of how we work. Conflict is a part of work. It helps us find better ways of doing our job, learn from one another, and results in innovation.
  1. The Danger of Avoiding Conflict Patrick Lencioni (video) – Patrick Lencioni is the author of 13 books and a pioneer of the organizational health He consults in the areas of leadership, teamwork, and engagement.
  2. Finding Confidence in Conflict | Kwame Christian | TEDxDayton (video) – Kwame Christian is the founder of the American Negotiation Institute and the host of the number one negotiation podcast in the world, Negotiate
  3. What is Radical Candor? (video) – Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candour, whose insight on honest conversations brings a new perspective on communication.
 

Conversations – The hard & messy kind

These resources get into our human elements’ messiest and most challenging parts. Understanding trust, safety, belonging and why conflict is part of great teams is only one part of the equation. Another equally important factor is showing up with authenticity and challenging ourselves to find the best ways forward. Below are several resources from Brené Brown to give us insight into empathy, vulnerability and rumbling (hard conversations). We have also included her tools to support us in tangible ways to have hard conversations.
  1. Brené Brown on Empathy (video) – Brené Brown is an author and podcast host known for researching shame, vulnerability, and
  2. Lets Rumble – Brené Brown (article) – How to lean into vulnerability to have hard and messy
  3. Brené Brown: Curious How To Brave? Here’s What The Research Says (podcast) – how to be your most courageous self.
When you’re ready to have the conversation, here are some more helpful resources:
  1. Dare to Lead The Story Rumble Process: A Guide for Groups and Teams – Brené Brown
  2. Dare to Lead |The BRAVING Inventory – Brené Brown

First Time Leaders

All your hard work culminated in your appointment as a leader within your organization. Quite intentionally, your company has allowed you to move beyond being a ‘worker’ to get your arms around a more significant piece of the business, learn what it means to head up a unit and take your leadership skills to the next level. Watch out, however. The world is full of failed Site-Superintendents who were once great carpenters. Many rising stars trip when they shift from being a worker to leading and, for the first time, taking responsibility for Profit & Loss and oversight of others who used to be peers. It truly is different at the top. Transitioning from a worker to a leader, you will:
  • Move from in-depth knowledge to understanding the overall organizational picture.
  • Represent senior management decisions and policy.
To find the right balance between advocating for the team and advocating for senior management, you may find these articles helpful.
  1. 5 Secrets To Avoid A First-Time Manager’s Worst Mistakes
  2. 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Team Members Every Month 
  3. Why 75 Is The Single Most Important Number You Will Ever Need To Lead 
  4. Simple Shifts – Your Checklist To Being A Better Leader 
  5. Can You Name the 9 Essential Qualities of a Leader? 
  6. Steps to Leading in A Crisis: Don’t Be an Ass
 
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