Leading People

To retreat, in the tactical sense, is to strategically cede ground by withdrawing; to double back, in the face of overwhelm, in order to reassess. This isn’t fully how we use the term in organizational design and development, though I would argue that it’s apt, given how overwhelmed many of us feel in the day-to-day. […]

The power of transparency and intention when you’re not yet paying your people as much as you’d like. I went for a walk with a friend and client this morning, who, reflecting on the last year or so of her business reminded me that I had frequently advised her that she “can’t do everything all […]

On not strangling your business with unnecessary hierarchy. Every once in awhile a New Yorker cartoon lands that seems to capture the zeitgeist of a particular organizational trend, at least in my corner of the world. This one was really one of those “ya either get it or you don’t” pieces, and I delightedly flung […]

Credit where credit is due: a client gave me this writing assignment. We’re both watching The Pitt, the Noah Wiley career reboot emergency room drama that has been accurately called “competence porn”. Client said “you need to write about how this show is a masterclass in workplace feedback”1 Assignment accepted. The Pitt is set in […]

Last week I published a deep dive into the abysmal state of paid family leave in the United States: The State of Paid Family Leave The TLDR of that piece is that we don’t have anywhere near adequate systems of leave or care, and that sucks, particularly for those of us in resource-limited tiny businesses. […]

I’m not going to be so bold as to say that *you* personally are doing this, but there are a fair number of *you all* out there that fling bonuses around to your team without clear structure or reason. And my hunch is that this is more about dopamine (it feels really good to give […]

Greetings from the icy north. After a couple months elsewhere ( Portugal, Philly), I’m back in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for a long stretch; enough to dip my toe in the word “home” (for now). Texting with a friend last night I admitted that I was mostly feeling at a loss for words lately. […]

In Northeast Vermont, where I now live most of the year, the interlude between the electric neon of fall foliage and the first snow is called “stick season.” I’ve discovered neighbors I never knew existed on my morning walks: houses and rusted farm equipment tucked away along the trails I’ve been walking for months, unveiled […]

One of the routines I’ve taken up in the past months has been taking Josie, my dog, to the river for early morning walks. This was born of her declaring herself over the sidewalk circles in our neighborhood… and as she’s somewhere in the vicinity of 80 lbs, if she wants to stand on the […]