Many of my clients ask me for help with “time management.” Their schedules are over-run with meetings, projects, and tasks that they worry will never get done. Although this is a common complaint in today’s workplace, I’m not convinced that this is actually a “time management” problem. Undoubtedly there are people who have poor time management
Recently I saw an advertisement announcing the 25th anniversary edition of Paulo Coelho’s book “The Alchemist.”** I remembered enjoying the book when I first read it, but had totally forgotten the story line. On a long car trip last week, I listened to it on audio, and was reminded exactly why I had so enjoyed it. Mainly, I really love the
“Bad things come in threes.” We hear this suspicion expressed so often that typically after “two bad somethings” happen in rapid succession, we start watching for “The Third.” In my case, there have been three client situations in the last month, where negativity was a major problem on the team and I was called to help address it. Fortuitously, I
Leadership is a topic under continuous discussion in most American workplaces. We in the US (as I’m sure it is elsewhere) are raised with an emphasis on becoming leaders, at first in our classrooms and later, in our workplaces. It seems a bit curious then, that according to the headlines, there is a “crisis in leadership” in
One of the things I’ve learned from my acting clientele concerns the notion of “suspending disbelief” to increase one’s engagement with a film or theatrical performance. As I understand it, “suspending disbelief” involves consciously accepting premises of a storyline that may not be realistic or pragmatically possible, and in so doing, entering a world where anything can
Imagine that when you arrive at work today, you learn that a big change has occurred–perhaps a big decision has been made, a promotion or demotion has been announced, or a new direction has been forged. And now imagine that you don’t like this change, and that this change is already a “done deal.” What
Recently, a client of mine made a sizable mistake, one that was causing a major setback for himself and for his team. Anguished, he asked, “Please, can you fix this? Or better yet, can you fix ME??” Later that day, another client was complaining bitterly about one of her direct reports, whose behavior was extremely
If you are employed in the US or Japan, it is likely that you spend most of your waking hours at work. It follows that if you hate your job, or the people you are working with, or the clients you serve, your life can feel pretty miserable. Sure, we don’t always love our work,
Happy New Year! As a coach, I love this time of year because no one is still living in 2013–everyone on the globe has turned a page. Whether we individually have made New Year’s resolutions or not, collectively we acknowledge that the reset button has been pressed and that things are beginning afresh. The New
I’m writing this blog post while on vacation, which may provoke you to ask, “What kind of vacation is THAT? You are not relaxing, you’re working!” Or, more than likely, you didn’t even notice the irony–the lines between work time and “down time” are blurred (or gone) for many of us. Research shows that over half