Teamwork Ugh
Teamwork. Collaboration. It sounds so straightforward, doesn’t it? Time and again, however, leaders share with us just how challenging it is. Many models describe what effective teaming looks like, the…
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Romancing the Stone … or Not.
Often, when people think of Cartagena, Colombia, they think of either Romancing the Stone or the illegal drug trade. Far more pedestrian, Cartagena was the site of our second annual…
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Why I Became an Executive Coach
I’m often asked how and why I became a coach. Let’s go back to 2008. I had just moved to Charlotte for my new role running the succession planning program…
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Make Feedback Your Superpower
Years ago, at the beginning of my coaching career, I was working with a leader (let’s call her Allie) who was having a challenge with a direct report of hers…
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My Awful Feedback Conversation
Let’s time travel. Let’s go back to 2010 or 2011. I’m working at Lowe’s Home Improvement’s corporate office, and my broad-based human resources career is deepening into the strategy execution…
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Sometimes leadership lessons emerge from the strangest places.
One of the premier museums in Stockholm, Sweden is the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship commissioned by the King Gustav II Adolph in 1625. It was intended to…
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Lessons in Grief
We had to put our family dog, Nana, down this summer. She was ten and had blood cancer. My older son has mild autism, and when he was young and…
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What I Did on my Summer Vacation
I checked out. I turned off my email. I went incommunicado. For two weeks. It was fabulous. It also wasn’t always this way. Sometimes clients think we coaches have got…
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An HR Manager’s Guide to Developing Leaders
Vertical development provides unique opportunities for more dynamic, interesting, and long-lasting learning and development (L&D). Key Takeaways: Focusing solely on developing competencies (horizontal development) only gets leaders so far as…
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How to Measure Vertical Development with Assessments
Maturity assessments measure where a person falls within the seven stages of the vertical development framework. Key Takeaways: Maturity assessments are used to help leaders and their coaches understand the…
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