Over the last few weeks at Clear and Open, we discussed employee engagement often. One of the challenges of addressing disengagement in the workplace is the cultural issue. I don’t mean your company culture, although that’s inevitably a factor. I mean the world culture. We live in a disengaged world, and it didn’t use to…
Do you have challenges with impatience? Consider: How’s your ability to focus? Do you feel like you’re on track to your long-term goals? Do you get anxious not checking your phone for a while? These questions all have a common theme, stay with me. It’s easy to see we’ve become an instant-gratification society. Not long…
What if I said there’s something that causes managers and employees needless suffering every day in this world that almost no one talks about? Would you believe me? Can you handle a two-minute psychology lesson? I promise it’s worth it. (And it is one of the most needed leadership lessons.) I’m talking about authority projections.…
How does choice relate to disengagement? Allow me to digress. My favorite scene in The Devil Wears Prada is when Meryl Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly, gives an incisive mini-lecture on the invisible and pervasive power of the fashion industry. Check out the clip, it’s less than two minutes. (Not a spoiler!) This scene brings tears…
I don’t know when the word “opportunity” was first used as a reframe for a difficulty, but it’s easy to see it’s overused and has become even cliché. Like all wisdom trickled down into mass usage, this overuse dilutes the real meaning. It’s like what happens to your love of a hit song that’s so…
I had a profound realization about disengaged employees I want to share with you that is critically important for anyone who manages people. I need to give you two minutes of background first. “The world has an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.” This is the first line…
Management is like parenting: many people do it and they mostly have no idea what they’re doing, but they somehow make it work. The result? Stress, wheel-spinning, overwhelm, and millions of dollars in lost opportunity. That’s why I’m launching a special course starting January 11th, 2018. How to Manage and Be Managed is the missing…
Last week, we talked about the larger lesson and how your relationship to fear and discomfort is the answer to achieving greatness. Let me repeat. Your relationship to fear and discomfort is the answer. In other words, whatever you’re doing, whatever project, initiative, business, partnership, etc. Whatever it is, greatness only happens when you want…
Now, we’re going to get granular about embracing discomfort and how knowing what that entails helps you achieve greatness. In part one of this series, I talked about the tortures of my early springboard diving career and promised I’d tell you more scary things about it. Every diver faces a very specific moment of fear…
Last week, I gave you the assignment to examine your relationship to physical, mental, and emotional discomfort. Did you embrace the discomfort and do the work? If not, go back, and do that right now. It’s common for people to be familiar with the benefits of physical discomfort related to exercise; less so with the…