#31 – Satisfaction ≠ Engagement

This is #31 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Looking for more? Try this one. Measure satisfaction when you want to find out what people think about the food in the cafeteria or if the marketing team needs new furniture or if your employees would like to form a softball league. Measure engagement

#13 – “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer

This is #13 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Actually, it’s not just an acceptable answer, it’s often a great one. It is wonderfully counterintuitive that the ability to say “I don’t know” comes from self-confidence. It is self-assurance in what we do know that allows us the ability to be more curious,

Towards Aliveness

“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” – from “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte Move towards aliveness. As best you can, keep moving towards it. Resist the pull to the middle, miles from the edge

From the Outside In

Real change begins at the edges, never at the center. The center is dogmatic and certain. The edge is open and curious, the gateway to possibility. To work from the outside in for your team, your work group or even your family, you might consider a series of small but potent actions in service of

What’s your story?

Today I asked my students to think of a recent experience when they were fully engaged, be it at work, in school or with some other endeavor. I asked them to think of an instance when time slowed down, they were hyper-focused, and they were both cognitively and emotionally dedicated to the work at hand.

Striding into Fall

“Fall is the older season, a more seasoned season. The weather surrounds you instead of beating down on you…The weather is lighter, marbled, and it makes you feel like striding again, makes you glad that so much works at all.” – Anne Lamott I am not a slow walker. Slow walking makes me crazy. I

One Good Thing

An invitation for your consideration: At the end of your Tuesday workday, ask and answer this question: What was one good thing that happened today? It doesn’t matter if you have a surfeit of answers or if absolutely nothing comes immediately to mind. What matters, once you land on it, is that you make it

That’s Not My Job

Imagine that your job is to paint the stripes down the middle of the road. And not just any stripes, but the double yellow ones that create a powerful visual safety barrier on a well-traveled two-lane road. Imagine that you’ve reached the line that demarcates city from county and you are told to stop painting

The Pretense of Self Sufficiency

I like to fix things. I’m pretty good at it. I’m not a qualified auto mechanic or electrician by any stretch, but if you need your new TV setup or your phone reconnected or your files moved to the cloud, I’m a good guy to ask. I like being good at fixing these small things

When is it due?

Have you ever had “Just get it to me whenever you can” turn into “Why haven’t you finished that yet!?!”? Both the requestor and the producer are complicit in this failure of agreement. The former needs to provide a clear deadline, even if it’s a best guess, and the producer needs to request one before agreeing to